13. Protect Your Own
“Sunny? Sunny? Sunny, it’s okay.”
It was Melody’s voice. I couldn’t really hear it over the screaming. It was different from the scream before. This one sounded different. It was a mare’s voice, not a stallion’s.
It was me. I was screaming. I was looking at the huddled form of the green stallion and screaming.
Melody forcefully pulled me back and turned my face away. “Sunny, it’s okay. You’re okay. Look at me. Look at me, Sunny.”
I did. My voice gave out. I just rasped.
She looped a hoof around my neck and nuzzled my cheek. “It’s going to be okay. I promise.”
Strong came over and asked, “Is she alright? I’ve subdued the rest of them. After she… Well, nopony has any more interest in resisting.”
Melody shook her head. “I’m not sure. She hasn’t stopped screaming yet.” Her eyes turned back to me with concern. “Sunny? Are you with me?”
“Is that pony dead?” I whispered and tried to look.
A soft hoof kept me from doing so. “Let’s focus on something else. We’ve got this situation in hoof now. Strong and I are fine. You saved me. Can you send up another flare like you did before? We need to attract more attention.”
I shook my head no. No more magic. No more magic ever again.
Melody set her hooves on my shoulders. “Can you try? Sunny, we really need backup here. Can you please try?”
My eyes closed tightly. I could feel the heat of tears rolling down my cheeks. At least I hoped it was tears. Focus, focus, focus. Just like Princess Celestia taught you. Feel the magic flow by your horn.
I pointed to the heavens again and sent up another blast. When it got high enough, I burst it out again. This one was even brighter than before. It lit up the entire night sky. I heard everypony around me gasp and when my eyes opened the bad ponies were cowering.
They were afraid for their lives. Afraid of me. Afraid of Sunny Day.
“Again, Sunny,” Melody said, shifting her hoof to my cheek and forcing me to look only at her.
With my eyes focused on Melody, I did it again and again. Six times in all before Royal Guard pegasi streamed down from the sky.
Strong Wing called out, “I’m Sergeant Wing and that is Sergeant Ward. We’ve had some trouble here.”
The pony with the biggest helmet plumage looked around and said, “It looks like you have it all under control now.” His head tilted as he caught sight of the green pony. “Does he need a medic?”
My pegasus friend cleared his throat softly. “No, sir. The rest of these are part of some kind of smuggling ring. Two others fled into the forest but I imagine they’re long gone now. These are the leaders.”
“Alright, Sergeant. Let’s get you all to Canterlot and sort this out. I’ll need to check that you are who you say you are. Everypony here will submit and come back for questioning.”
A pegasus stallion came over to Melody and I. She looked at him and said, “She’s not a guard. Be gentle with her, please.”
He nodded and looped his hooves under my forehooves. “Yes, Sergeant. We’ll see you back at the station.”
The station. No medic. What had I done?
☼
I was vaguely aware of Dolly standing against my left side. She was dressed up in a nice blouse. Melody was on my right in her armor. I hadn’t really dressed at all. Just my mane. Dolly had done my mane.
I’d been living in her bedroom for about a week now. She’d been handling most of my responsibilities for me. She said I had to be here for this one. This was something she couldn’t do for me and that it might help.
Some Royal Guard general was standing in front of us looking at me. There were others in the room, including Strong Wing and a few I recognized from the Helping Hooves program.
“Today is a day of mixed feelings. I feel both pride and sorrow. We wish to recognize a pony that took initiative and did what was necessary to save one of our own. At the same time, we know that her actions came at a great personal cost.
“Sunny Day, when danger found you, you did not hide or retreat. You stepped forwards.” And killed a pony.
“You saved Sergeant Ward from severe injuries and possibly death. For that, I wish to extend to you the gratitude of the entire Royal Guard. Your actions further led to the arrest of a known criminal, the confiscation of dangerous goods, and the resolution of several open cases. You are an uncommon pony.”
Yes, the kind of pony that kills another pony. The rarest kind of pony.
He looked down to me instead of out at the crowd. “It is my privilege to name you an honorary royal guard and the Guard takes care of its own.”
The general opened a small box and pulled a medal out of it. He slipped it over my head. “This is the Medal of Bravery. It is awarded to ponies that show courage in the face of great adversity.
“As an honorary royal guard, you are eligible for it. Additionally, you are now eligible for all services the Guard has to offer. Thank you for what you’ve done. I hope in time you will recover from your wounds.”
I looked down at the medal dangling from my neck. It was bronze and shaped to look like Princess Celestia’s cutie mark. The ribbon was light blue and pink like her mane. Any other time I’d have thought it was pretty.
“Sunny, is there something you’d like to say to the colonel?” Dolly asked softly.
No, not really. I wanted to go home and cry again. That seemed like a good idea. But why wait to go home? I could cry here. I guess that might not be appropriate and I didn’t want to embarrass Melody. Keeping it together a little longer should be possible. “Thank you,” I said softly.
He shook his head. “No, thank you.”
The ceremony was over, then. The guards funneled out and I started walking towards the door.
“Hey, Sunny,” Melody said, setting a hoof on my foreleg.
I looked over at her.
“I want to take you to see a pony. Right away. Now that you’re an honorary royal guard, you can get in the programs. There is one for ponies that have to… uh… have to… to do what you had to do. Come on.” Her grip was firm.
She couldn’t even say it.
Dolly looked at me and then said, “I think you should go with Melody, sweetie. The Royal Guard will know how to handle this better. If you don’t like it you can always leave and come back to my place. You should try, though.”
That was probably true. Surely some guards had been through this. Maybe once a decade or something? Plus, they kept saying Sunny Day always moved forwards. I guess that was true. “Okay.”
Melody took me from the Royal Guard command building where the ceremony had been held to one of the others that was on the campus. It was one of those common three-story office buildings you see everywhere. They all looked the same to me.
All of the interior walls were a mellow blue and the lighting was slightly subdued. We went to the second floor, Melody practically pulling me the whole way. She brought me through a door that led to a waiting room and pointed to a couch. “Sit there, Sunny. I’ll be right back, okay?”
“Okay.”
There weren’t any other ponies there. Just me. The room was kind of nice, I guess. It was blue, too. The furniture was soft and there were a lot of little plants around. Real ones. Of course there were no windows so I had no idea how they lived.
“Sunny?”
I looked up. Melody was standing in front of me with a unicorn mare. “Sunny, this is Dr. Soothing Tone. She’s going to talk to you a little while. I’ll be right out here when you’re done.”
Soothing Tone reached out a hoof to me. “You can call me Suzy if you like. That is what most ponies do. It is nice to meet you, Sunny. Let’s go have a chat.”
Suzy was all pink. Everything was pink. Coat, mane, tail, eyes. Pink, pink, pink. She might have even been cute. She didn’t look like a doctor. Tentatively, I took her hoof and she led me out of the waiting room and into an office. There was another unicorn mare there.
That mare was very different. Her coat was grey in an odd way. It was like how ponies looked from old black and white photos. That was contrasted heavily by an electric yellow and white mane.
Suzy motioned to her. “This is Dr. Mindful Soul. She’s finishing up her residency. Do you mind if she observes our chat?”
I shook my head.
“Why don’t you have a seat wherever you feel comfortable?”
There was a blue loveseat so I settled there. How did I get here so fast? We’d just come from the ceremony and now I was with doctors. Ponies like me probably needed doctors.
“Now, Sunny, guards don’t often have to take a life in the pursuit of their duty but it does happen. When it does, we’re here. We’re here because royal guards take care of their own just like you took care of Sergeant Ward. That was your turn, this is mine. Do you understand?”
My ears flicked. “But I’m not a royal guard.”
Suzy smiled at me. “Honorary or not, you’re a royal guard now. We’re here for you, we’ll never give up on you, and we’ll take care of you for life.”
“You’d do all that because I did one thing?”
“One thing? You saved a life.”
“I took a life,” I said meekly.
“Yes, you did. You stopped one life from being taken by taking another. A horrible choice, but it was one that had to be made. Now you make the next choice: get help or go at it alone. The Guard is here to help. Do you want that help? Nopony can make you.”
I idly rubbed one hoof over the other. Could they really help? It was worth a try, right? Dolly said if I didn’t like it I could just leave. Not that her bedroom was helping much. I looked at Suzy. “I’d like help.”
“Great, that is the first step. We have a program for this occurrence. It works well but something like this is never one size fits all. You’ll work through it at your own pace and I won’t lie, you’re going to have hard moments.
“Initially we start with one on one therapy, then we get you involved with the group, af—”
“Group?” I repeated in surprise.
Suzy nodded. “Of course. Like I said, this is uncommon but not so rare that you’ll be alone. We have a group that meets every week. There are about eight ponies in it.”
Others like me? Royal guards that had to kill? Maybe I wasn’t alone. “Okay…”
“We start group therapy after some one-on-one, though, because initially most guards are pretty emotional and need time to process and grieve in private. I also recommend stepping up your PT.”
“PT?”
She shook her head. “I’m sorry, habit. Physical training. Exercising. Do you exercise?”
“I gallop a lot.”
“Great! Well, I’d like you to do that more and maybe some other exercises. I’m sure Sergeant Ward wouldn’t mind working with you on that. A healthy body helps with a healthy mind.”
Working out with Melody wouldn’t be bad. Could exercise help? I guess she’d know.
Suzy reached over and picked up a notebook. “Alright, now I know this is sudden but we’ve found the sooner you start your treatment, the more likely it is to succeed. You never want to let a traumatic experience fester. That leads to ponies making decisions they might not otherwise make.
“So, if you think you can handle it, tell me what happened. How you saw it, how it made you feel then, and how you feel now. If not, we can just chat a little. Don’t feel like you have to do too much too quickly.”
Suzy seemed legitimately concerned about me. Just like Melody or Dolly. Did they treat all royal guards like this? Strong and Melody certainly were close. Was I really part of their club now? This seemed like a horrible way to get in.
I took a deep breath and tried to keep my cool. “We were far from our camp and decided to check on what we thought was a forest fire. When we got there, though, it wasn’t a fire. It was a meeting of criminal ponies…”
☼
Melody hopped on my back and then up to the top of the wood wall. She laid flat and reached down to me. I took her hoof and she pulled me up. Then we both hopped over to the other side. In unison, we landed, rolled, and then were up and galloping to the next obstacle.
We jumped, side by side, caught a rope, and swung over a big pit of mud. When we got to the other side, we crossed the finish line. My heart was racing, I was out of breath, but I felt great.
Strong Wing was waiting there and looked down at a stop watch. “That is a personal best, you two.”
Melody grinned. “I’m not surprised. Sunny is quite the athlete.”
I shrugged. “I like to stay in shape. Plus having a good partner is very motivating. That and the fact we practice every other day.”
“Practice makes perfect!” Melody chimed before lightly pushing me towards the gym. “Alright, you need to get showered and then off to group.”
“Yeah, I wouldn’t want to be late or smelly. I’ll see you two tomorrow, alright?”
“Yup!” Strong replied.
“You bet,” Melody put in.
I headed off to the gym’s mares’ locker room. The whole place was full of royal guards working out and staying fit. Physical training was a big deal for them. Actually, it was becoming a big deal for me, too. Galloping to stay thin was one thing. This was about stamina, endurance, strength, and more. It gave me a feeling of control.
It helped keep my mind off what I’d done. That and group therapy. Knowing you weren’t alone is a huge deal. Knowing there actually are ponies like you helps. Especially since everypony just treated me like one of them. Honorary royal guard pretty much just meant royal guard.
A nice hot shower relaxed my muscles, focused my mind, and got me clean. It would be time for group and then off to work. Just like most days. It was all about the routine and moving forwards. One hoof in front of the next.
The group met in one of the gym’s many focus areas. It was like a mini-gym where ponies could work on specific classes such as yoga or fillates. We used it to talk about our feelings. When I got through the door, several ponies looked my way, smiled, and waved.
“Hello, Sunny! Right on time,” Suzy said.
“Yes, ma’am,” I replied before getting some water and sitting at my spot between Franklin and Mighty. “Hey, fellas.”
“Hey, Sunny,” they replied.
Suzy waited patiently as a few more ponies streamed in. In all, there were about ten of us now. Certainly enough to make a pony feel less weird.
“Alright, everypony, let’s get started. Who would like to share a triumph for this week?”
Franklin raised his hoof. “Me, please.”
She nodded. “Go ahead.”
This was my team now. Together we’d get through the hurt, the anguish, and the guilt. Each session we talked about our triumphs, our failures, and how we’d improve. It was just what I needed. Actually, it was what we all needed. Pain shared is pain bared.
☼
The Mare Contraire was kind of dead for a Sunday night. I wasn’t sure why, but at least it gave Pink Pearls a lot of time to help me with my mixology skills.
“That’s good, Sunny. Your cocktails are really coming along. You’ve clearly been studying,” Pearls said.
“It keeps me focused. Thanks for helping me.”
She shook her head. “No sweat. Oh, looks like you have a customer coming over. A cute one, too.”
“Hmm?” I looked up to see Soarin coming my way. He’d never been to my work before. This wasn’t exactly the place for stallions. Not that they were unwelcome.
“Hey, Sunny,” he said somewhat sheepishly.
“Hey! What brings you out?”
“I was looking for you. I haven’t seen you in a few months. I was worried I might have upset you or something.”
Months? It hadn’t been… oh, Celestia, I guess it had. I’d been so locked into my schedule to keep focused that I hadn’t really spent much time on the other aspects of my life. Quickly, I shook my head. “No, not at all! I had this thing. Have this thing. I’m still working through it. It has nothing to do with you! I’m so sorry. I’ve been so busy I haven’t come to tell you.”
Soarin nodded. “Hey, that’s okay! You don’t owe me any explanations. We can both see other ponies.”
“No, it isn’t like that. I uh…” I didn’t want to explain. Not here. I might break down again. “You see—ugh, okay, listen. I can’t get into it here but I swear it isn’t like that. If you pick me up after work, I’ll tell you all about it. Okay?”
“Sure, though I’m not trying to stress you. I’m not upset.”
“It’s okay! I have to get used to talking about it. Just not while I’m on shift. Come see me tonight and we’ll talk about it like normal ponies. It is kind of heavy, though. I have to warn you.”
He shrugged. “I’m pretty big. I have pretty broad shoulders, too. When do you get off?”
“Uh… usually around thr—”
“Now,” Dolly said from beside me.
I squealed and jumped in surprise. She was like a freaking ghost with her eavesdropping.
The older mare pushed me towards the end of the bar. “Go ahead and go with him. I’ll cover your shift.”
“But my pay—”
“I’ll pay you for the whole shift. Go on. Don’t worry about stuff like that right now, okay?”
Softly, I nuzzled her cheek. “Okay. Thanks. I guess I’m off now, Soarin. Let’s go chat.”
He had watched the spectacle in silence and then went along with me. “This must be really serious,” he said.
“Yeah… I’m afraid it is. It all started on that camping trip I invited you on. Things were going great at first, but then it all went downhill fast.”
This was an important but tricky chapter to write. With Sunny's story being shorter I feel like it is important to hit the highlights.
If you are enjoying this story, please consider taking a look at Crystal and my's website QuillnBlade.com for extra content such as mini stories, an Ask Us form to submit questions, responses to said questions, and special rewards for the awesome folks who support our Patreon.
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And so it begins.
I wonder how Soarin will react to the news.
I'm glad to see Sunny getting help.
What you wrote was good, although I feel like you moved through this much too quickly for it to really have the impact it deserved. The story just jumps from her first session to months later when she has things mostly under control without taking the time to explore her journey of recovery which is a shame because there is a lot of good emotional meat to work with there. This further stands out because you really took the time to explore Silent's problems and did a great job with it so the lack of that exploration feels really off here.
Wow
This is good stuff, but I'd have liked it to be a little longer with more of Sunny working to recover.
That said, it's still good stuff!
6964096
Seconded on the multi-month time skip diminishing the impact of the recovery. If that were a chapter or two down the line, after having devoted a good bit more wordcount to Sunny's therapy, it'd be fine, but as is it's quite abrupt. Maybe if it had been weeks instead of months, combined with what the next chapter is likely to cover. I dunno *shrug*
That said, the whole bit about being named an honorary guard & gaining access to the full guard services & programs (especially the post-trauma recovery programs) says a LOT about Equestrian values, of which I heartily approve. That's both an excellent bit of world building and helps to make it more evident as to how and why Sunny eventually joins the guard in fact as well as in name. Well done!
6964343 The other piece that is conspicuously absent due to the time skip is Celestia. There is no way she would fail to hear about this shortly after it happened so I would expect her to take a personal interest in Sunny's recovery.
6963949 Yes indeed, the direction is set!
6964045 He's a pretty nice pony I think.
6964061 Yes indeed. Immediately help!
6964096 It was a conscious choice for the precise reason you mentioned: we've seen this with Silent Knight. This is not a story about Sunny's recovery. This is a story about her early life and why she joined the guard. Mental health has been explored already and it would have been a rehashing.
6964103 Very few words for you!
6964342 Appreciated. It was a conscious choice though to shift the focus. I've explored the recovery from traumatic incidents already. That isn't the focus of this particular story.
6964343 ^ And yes, that is how I view Equestria for sure. They're very big on taking care of others :D
6964382
Granted, you've covered recovering from this kind of trauma with Silent Knight & Azurite, but they at least were both guards before having to kill somepony. Sunny Day had ZERO training or expectation that she'd ever have to kill, & for better or worse, her trauma and her recovery would of necessity be different from the others' experiences (hence, less of a re-hash). Even just a few paragraphs vaguely describing her recovery taking months & how supportive everypony was would help to ease the transition without dwelling overly long on it.
That said, I will second the idea that Celestia WOULD want to talk with Sunny, given her having been Sunny's teacher in Magical Ethics & having a somewhat stronger teacher/student bond than she does with the average student, and given that I'd imagine it's HIGHLY unusual/rare for a non-guard to be in a position where killing was necessary. I could easily see Celestia comforting Sunny, even if she just offered a literal shoulder for Sunny to cry on & a wing to hug her tight (& Sunny WOULD need that).
6964382 I suppose so. I just honestly couldn't think of anything else
On one side, I can't possibly imagine what that must be like in real life, but on the other, I know full well what it's like to blame yourself for something completely out of control. There's things I know and things I don't all over the bloody place, so rather than seem ignorant about the stuff I don't know, I just figured that might get the point across. That point being you're a pretty bloody good writer
6964434 I don't disagree that her reaction would be different due to her lack of training and being a guard. Again though, that wasn't going to be the focus of this story. In my eyes the transitions suggest the length of time, plus her conversation with Soarin setting the time frame.
From the Celestia point of view, that may have happened off screen. With that said, we only see Sunny's perspective so Celestia took a big part of it. That doesn't mean Sunny is as big a part of her life, however. How many students does she have? Does she treat them all the same? If Sunny did not specifically go to her, why would she know what happened?
6964096 I dunno. I liked seeing how Sunny moved through it, and it really suggests that it was all a blur to her, which was evident in how she didn't realize she hasn't talked to Soarin in months. It also kinda fits with her plan of never thinking about it and keeping her mind off of it, as if it never happened or she's unaffected by it.
Something I do want to think about as she goes through with it is how what she does compares to what Silent Knight did (will do?) to get through his problems. Like you said, he really fits into your definition of emotional meat, as he really broke down how he was affected in every part of his life, and I feel it'd be cool to see how Anzel writes Sunny's life from now on. I'm absolutely sure Anzel wrote Sunny to be different for an reason.
6964478 A civilian getting caught up in a guard operation (even/especially an ad hoc one) and being forced to kill to save said guards would be front page news. The merest hint of something like that would have every muckracker for a hundred miles salivating over the potential controversy. "Ponyville Confidential," heavily implies that ponies are just as fascinated by gossip and controversy as humans are so the aforementioned pony muckrackers almost certainly exist. If the tabloid rags didn't bug Sunny over the incident it implies that somepony with a lot of pull stepped in to protect her privacy.
Is Dolly's special talent being stealthy or something?
6964382 I strongly disagree with this sentiment. While we did see what happened to Silent, Sunny is a radically different pony taking a radically different approach to dealing with her very different trauma so there would be almost no overlap. Silent is a quiet, serious, introverted, and private pony while Sunny is basically the exact opposite. Silent bottled things up while Sunny went to get help immediately (I was going to make a sarcastic crack about this until the time skip happened and distracted me). Silent's trauma stemmed from his failures getting his troops killed while Sunny's stemmed from killing to protect her friend. This all adds up to a radically different response to and recovery from trauma and should have made the two trauma arcs a wonderful study in both contrasts and underlying themes, but instead you totally skipped a huge turning point in Sunny's life.
6964478
This kind of thing is a huge deal. Celestia absolutely would have known what happened even if it was all ponies she never met before and happened far from Canterlot, and would have almost certainly taken the time to personally go thank and reassure the pony in question. That much is just leadership 101 and is something I'm sure you are familiar with given your background. With Celestia personally knowing Sunny and having given her free access to the palace to visit as a friend on top of this, there is no way she wouldn't have been heavily involved in her recovery even if Sunny isn't her pseudo-daughter (although that does make me realize it would have let you bring in filly Twilight which could have been adorable).
*Finally releases the breath i was holding all week* Oh thank the stars!
This.. was a good chapter. it really speaks alot about Sunny that she was able to step up to it, and that she has major issues about it. A sign that a person is not broke, by having remorse for killing someone, depending on the circumstances. And I see this is the start of her guard career. I enjoyed this chapter and cant wait for the next one!
I am actually surprised that Celestial didn't stop by to help.
6964534 In our world where everyone has a camera on their phone and people are everywhere, yes. There are no camera phones, there is no internet, and ponies don't have an "infotainment" industry where the press thrives on showing you bad news to get eyes. Ponies like gossip but no, they would not take a poor ponies horrible experience and plaster it on every newspaper. Additionally, this is a royal guard operation that happened in the middle nowhere, in the middle of the night, how would the papers even realistically hear about this? A royal guard would have to spill and if it isn't clear, a big aspect of this story is that they take care of their own.
So, I understand your point. In our world I'd completely agree. In this one, I'm afraid things wouldn't go that way.
6964532 I did indeed ;) You covered it very well. The blur, the moving past it. This wasn't the focus of the story but will have downstream effects instead of us focusing on the now!
6964548 One of many ;) Well, that and Sunny is sometimes too focused ahead!
6964667
Considering I explained what my intent was with this story what is there to strongly disagree with? You disagree with fact? The sky is generally blue, the grass is generally green. Let me restate this: It was a conscious choice for the precise reason you mentioned: we've seen this with Silent Knight. This is not a story about Sunny's recovery. This is a story about her early life and why she joined the guard. Mental health has been explored already and it would have been a rehashing. I'm not saying it wouldn't be different. I'm not saying it wouldn't be a good compare/contrast.
I'm saying that isn't the story I was going to tell with Sunny's tale. That is a fact. I understand you'd have liked to see that. Well, I didn't want to write that. I was aware of the option and chose a different path. If you didn't enjoy that, I understand. That happens. You've said your bit (like you usually do) and I've heard it.
No, I didn't. I showed what happened and a general recovery montage. Skipped would have been she killed the pony and then was in the royal guard. The point wasn't the trauma. It was the guard's response to her trauma. That was the focus. Not what she was going through specifically. Let me say this again: I didn't want to write another story about a pony going to therapy. I have two.
This is a declarative statement telling me about my AU and my story. Let me handle this the way I handled the last person that continued to do this.
No. Does the President contact everyone with PTSD? No, he doesn't. Does the President hear about every single police operation where a criminal is killed? No, he doesn't. Princess Celestia would not "absolutely have known about it." And again, I get to use the power of AU controller.
*waves a magic wand* Opps, the report never got to her desk on screen. Maybe it happened, maybe it didn't, maybe I'm going to work that in later, maybe I won't.
Your comments continue to take on a "you messed this up, you missed this, this is fact, and such" tone. I enjoy discussing but not being talked down to. Please consider that what I planned and write might not go with what you would have done so yourself. That doesn't make me right or wrong. It makes it a different path.
When it rains, it pours, eh? I had three new chapters to read today, three sad chapters.
Somepony should've told Silent Knight
Ooooh, like, Willowy's stallion?
Then make it longer. We won't mind, I promise you
Interesting chapter. I can't say it was unexpected. The last chapter pretty clearly telegraphed how the confrontation in the forest was going to end.
In hindsight, Melody and Strong Wing's decision to confront the smugglers seems like poor judgement. They placed themselves in a situation where a civilian had to come to their aid, and as a result one pony is dead and another is suffering from psychological trauma. Whatever the benefits of stopping the smugglers were, I'm not sure how they measure up against those costs. One could argue (and they might, in their defense) that Sunny Days had no obligation to defend them -- that she made that choice herself after they advised her to run. But, that wasn't the decision she made, and they should have considered that risk (as well as the risk if she hadn't intervened, which might have resulted in their deaths).
If I were their commanding officer, I might initiate an investigation. Certainly I wouldn't be writing them up for any awards.
As for Sunny... I have to admit I'm a little disappointed this chapter didn't go for a more nuanced approach. It's very easy to craft a situation like this, where Sunny's actions were beyond reproach -- yes, she's beating herself up for killing a pony, but objective observers know intuitively that she did nothing wrong. She had to kill that pony in order to save her friend. She was utterly and completely justified in that action.
But that's almost never how it goes in real life. It's always messier. It's almost never a question of "If I hadn't acted, my friend would have died."
Instead, in hindsight, people pick apart their actions and find the flaws. They ask, "What if we hadn't gone down that valley? What if I had learned a few more phrases in Pashtu, and tried telling that child to drop the gun, instead of just shouting at him and pointing my weapon at him? What if we had gone straight back to base after meeting with the governor, instead of sitting at his residence for four hours meeting with local elders?"
After a moral injury like Sunny suffered, people don't just feel despondence and lethargy. They cab feel anger, too, as a defense mechanism. Maybe they feel anger at the victim, for putting themselves in that position. Or they feel angry at their comrades, for failing to take some action that might have prevented the event.
I can't speak for Sunny, of course, but if I were in her shoes, I would probably feel anger at a few people: the pony I had to kill, but especially Melody and Strong Wing.
Just some thoughts. Still reading with great interest.
6965558 There certainly would be an investigation. I agree with you there. That is something that happened off screen of course. Melody and Strong's choice was meant to be a tough one and one that might not have been right. So I think we track together there. It is just one of those situations where that wasn't something Sunny would necessarily be aware of and/or important to her story.
I certainly understand your point about Sunny. There are two things to that though.
The first is that I made a conscious decision not to do that. We saw a lot of that with Silent Knight and Azurite with their stories and I didn't want to focus another one that way. That isn't to say I wanted to gloss it over, but the process and feelings would be similar. We see some snippets and her growth.
The second is that this is a single chapter. I think some readers are assuming that "I'm done" with the issue. Things like this linger. I simply moved through the worst parts at a rapid pace. We'll see more about this in the future for sure. It shaped Sunny in ways that will be evident later.
Again though, I hear you completely. It just wasn't the direction I wanted to follow this time around. To me it felt like I'd be treading the same ground yet again. With that said, this was a necessary part to tell. It was planned early and shows the parallels between herself and Azurite that were hinted at at the start of Three of Hearts.
6965384 They were rough chapters indeed.
I was wondering when someone was going to catch that little poke!
It MIGHT be the same Frank ;D
6965317 She may have, she may not have. She may still and may not. It wasn't explicit in this chapter but it was meant to convey a fog over Sunny. We'll see how it shakes out as we go forwards :D
I think we found Willows special somepony.
*hugs Sunny* You did good little mare, not the most joyful way to become one of the protectors of Equestria. but you, you turned out great in the present days.
You sold the chapter for me with this one. Almost too real. Great job.
I can see why Sunny feels conflicted. Getting rewarded for saving a life by taking a life can often just leave the recipient feeling guilty.
6965333 Fine, since you seem to need me to spell it out for you despite the paragraph focusing on one point, this is the statement I was primarily disagreeing with:
Now go read it again and actually deal with the real problem instead of blowing me off again.
This is a very misleading comparison (and I'm ignoring the PTSD here because this is about Sunny, not Silent). Cases of police officers killing people are relatively common in the US so of course the president doesn't deal with it personally. Conversely, we can see by the size of the group that this is a much more rare thing in Equestria so it would garner a lot more attention higher up the chain, something that goes double when it is a civilian pulling the trigger. If you want a more accurate real life comparison to what happened here, you need to look to something like a terrorist attack which is much more comparable in rarity and shock factor. Those absolutely get the personal attention of the president and he takes personal action to show that he is aware of the situation. What exactly that action is depends on the details of the situation, but given how close and personal everything is to Celestia, she would absolutely be taking the time to speak with Sunny about what happened.
What can I say, I return what I get. I opened with a respectful comment and got blown off. I then responded in a more assertive tone while remaining polite to try to make it clear your first comment was insufficient to address my concerns, and you responded by seriously misrepresenting my arguments or ignoring them outright, and then topped it off with a personal attack.
6967318
I find it interesting that you consider your post polite. I didn't, not in the least. It came across as judgmental and condescending. Just like this one does. "Go deal with the real problem." You're suggesting that you get to decide that there is a problem with my story as if it is fact. Guess what? You don't. I did "deal with the real problem." I explained that what you expected isn't the story I wanted to write. As previously stated, I'm sorry if that means you don't like it.
With that said, you don't get to keep telling me to fix it, deal with it, or otherwise. I am sorry if you feel my response was a personal attack. I was merely pointing out that your comments frequently feel to me and Crystal as judgemental and condescending. So much so, that after this, I'm honestly not interested in what you have to say. So I'll sum it up. Good bye, take care, and thank you for reading but your contributions will no longer be required.
Oooo, so that's what happened to Sausage Pony. I suppose I should feel bad about the "grilled" comment, but nah.
You know, I wonder if part of the point in naming Sunny an honorary guardspony was specifically for making her eligible for that sort of counseling. It might not be something the civilian side of things is quite so set up to handle.
It's Pink Pony before she became a plushie!
Oh hey, it's Mindful Soul.
Geeze, no kidding. All things considered, they clearly needed to push Silent into this program right immediately after he came out of that coma.
Oooo, Soarin.
Yeah, good call on Dolly's part. Also, Sunny really isn't herself if she let that "When do you get off?" bit pass without comment.
Huh, that raises some interesting questions and potential issues. As Sunny said, all of this went down at the camping trip that Soarin didn't attend. Events would certainly have played out differently with one more military pony like Soarin on-scene to assist, and likely without Sausage Pony getting grilled either. It wouldn't be precisely logical, but it makes me wonder if his absence might lead to some emotional issues on Sunny's part down the line.
6969176
That is precisely it! The civilian side would certainly have some things for this (accidental death etc) but not like the Guard. The Guard has programs and they take care of their own. So yessir, you hit it!
Yup! My own kind of dig at Silent and his surrounding ponies. In my own story no less! That is the brief contrast I wanted to draw here. "Immediate help" and the results vs "far, far, delayed help" and the results.
Indeed. I left a lot of little clues for the "down the line" stuff vs the immediate "this is happening right now."
We all handle it differently.
6967404
Wow, I didn't remember you as this
much of a dismissive jerkbad at taking criticism.static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/MTG-ThreadNecromancer_3198.jpg
Ohhh, trial by fire. What is it with heads of house guards and death promotions?