Dragonfall

by DannyJ

Chapter 10: Papa Agony

>Stay and deal with possible paternity issues.

I stand frozen in the middle of the marketplace, Breakspear and Googlymoo off to the side watching me with bated breath. Hoofler remains beside me, brow creased into a frown, levelling a furious glare my way. I myself just stare blankly at the brown-red filly in front of me, heedless to the raindrops still pattering off my armour. I take in every detail of her. Her rain-soaked crimson mane. Her bored and slightly contemptuous expression. Her cutie mark of an arrow striking a bullseye target on a tree. The brace on her right hind leg. But most of all, I notice her wings. Her feathered wings.

I snort derisively at the wrinkled old mare beside her.

"Nice try, Cash," I say condescendingly. "But she doesn't look anything like me."

"That may be, but she's definitely yours," Hard Cash replies, still sneering. "Believe me, I wish she wasn't."

I laugh.

"Okay, I see we're in remedial biology here, so let me explain it slowly. I am a thestral. I have bat wings. These are a universally dominant genetic trait. That means any offspring of a thestral and a pegasus will also have bat wings. Your spawn has feathers. Q.E.D, she's not mine, and this little scam of yours won't work."

Cash lets out a long sigh, and digs into her saddlebags. "I expected you'd say something like that. Typical Agony. So here's her baby pictures."

She draws a photo album from her bags, and opens it up to the first page, showing a newborn foal still covered in afterbirth. Her colours match the filly standing before me, but her wings are leathery and bat-like, and her leg looks like a lump of melted chocolate. I recoil in disgust, making Cash roll her eyes and snap the book shut.

"Redwood here was born with some deformities, and needed a corrective bio-magical operation after birth. Since it needed to be done anyway, I took the liberty of paying the doctors to magic away her bat wings and other thestral features while they were at it."

"Wow, how convenient! So she's totally my foal, but just so happens to have had any physical identifiers that would confirm her as such removed! So, entertaining this stupid line of thought, why would you have done such a thing?"

"Oh, I don't know, Agony," Cash says with a false smile. "Maybe because I didn't want my husband finding out? Maybe that might have been a reason? Just a small influencing factor?"

"Well, your husband should definitely leave you if he hasn't already, but I'm afraid that a photograph doesn't prove anything. There could be illusion magic involved, the photo itself could be doctored, or that could just be a different foal altogether. This is not admissible evidence in a court of law, and it's not convincing me either."

"Urghhhhhh!" Cash groans, throwing her head back.

In a fit of frustration, she grabs the filly beside her, who lets out a shout of protest. Cash forcibly turns her around and lifts her mane, exposing the back of her neck. Above her right shoulder is a small black spiral shape. Just like the one I have in the same place. My eyes widen.

"Is this or is this not your stupid spiral birthmark thing?" Cash says, glaring at me.

"I-I..." I stammer. "Th-That's... Um... That mark is a tattoo! You tattooed your foal as part of your scheme!"

I look around to my soldiers for support. Breakspear gently shakes his head, while Googlymoo just grins like he's having the time of his life. I look desperately to Hoofler, only to find him red in the face and almost frothing at the mouth. I think he's just barely restraining himself from killing everypony present.

"Redwood, honey, what's your special talent?" Cash asks as the filly turns back around.

Redwood gives a cocky smirk.

"Victory," she says, without a shred of modesty. "I can beat anypony at anything."

I try not to let my uncertainty show on my face.

"...Okay, just because she has a slightly similar talent to me, that still doesn't prove—"

"Redwood, how many coltfriends have you had?" Cash asks suddenly.

The smug filly's grin disappears. She stares at her mother, aghast.

"M-Mom!"

"How many, young lady?"

"...Th-Thirteen," she squeaks, cringing away.

Cash arches an eyebrow. "Are those just the ones you've kissed?"

The filly nods meekly.

"How many total, sweetheart?"

"...Forty," Redwood murmurs, looking at the ground.

I stare at her, incredulous.

"And what about fillies?" Cash continues. "How many of those?"

"Twenty-nine..."

"Any others?"

With a face now as red as her mane from all her blushing, Redwood looks up to meet her mother's disapproving gaze.

"...Do griffons count?" she mumbles.

I blink disbelievingly, jaw hanging slightly open. Cash doesn't say anything more, merely giving me a flat look.

"...Okay, fine, so she's mine," I grumble. "Whatever! It doesn't matter, because you aren't getting a single bit from me! I don't have to pay you shit unless I want to guarantee visitation rights! Which I don't, because guess what? I don't care!"

I grin, expecting her to just groan again or stomp away. Instead, to my slight worry, she smiles.

"Oh, don't worry. I'm not here for that."

There's a sinking feeling in my stomach as she utters those words.

"...You're not?" I dare to ask.

"No." Cash smiles sweetly at me, making my neck hair stand up. "Actually, I'm here to leave her with you."

"What?!" I shout in unison with Breakspear and a dozen other stallions.

The filly smirks deviously at my obvious distress.

"Yes," Cash says, casually flipping her wet mane back. "See, I'm off to rehab soon, and I need to leave Redwood with somepony. My ex-husband wants nothing to do with her since he found out the truth. I'm not on speaking terms with my parents or my sisters either, and I've alienated just about everypony else I know, so... you're what's left."

Thunder cracks above us, as if to punctuate the ominousness of that statement.

"No," I say firmly, drawing a frown from Redwood herself.

"Agony." A grim look comes over Cash's face. "I mean it, I don't have any other options."

"Yes you do!" I shout. "Reconcile with your parents! Hire a long-term nanny! Give her over to the state! Sell her into slavery!"

"Hey!" the filly protests, only to be ignored.

"But for the love of Celestia and all things holy, don't bring your child to Dragonfall, you monster! What is wrong with you?"

Cash seems quite taken aback by my tirade.

"Wh-What is wrong with me?" she says, summoning back her righteous indignation. "I'm trying to find a suitable temporary home for our child, Agony. You're her father!"

"And you think Dragonfall is a good place for that? I've not even been here a week, and I've been stabbed three times and taken hostage twice! And didn't I already say that I want nothing to do with this?"

Her brow knits into a frown. "Fine. Let me make this easy on you. Take your daughter, Agony, or I'll take you to court for those nine years of child support payments after all."

"Nice try, but I know my child support law," I say, sneering again. "If the sire of a foal is not informed of a pregnancy within four months of its confirmation, and is unable to make a formal decision over his involvement, he is legally considered to not be responsible for the foal, and financial support for the mother becomes the responsibility of the state. You're ten years too late to get anything from me!"

Cash sneers back. "That loophole you're referencing only protects stallions who the mother chooses not to inform in time, not ones who run off without leaving a means of contact like you did. You are very specifically not protected; it's called the Scumbag Clause. Look it up."

I feel the blood draining from my face, and try to think of a response, but I come up with nothing.

"Final chance, Agony. Take your damn daughter."

"One in every eight of my coworkers are registered sex offenders!" I scream at the top of my lungs, a note of pleading desperation creeping into my voice. "The Mayor was murdered in his own office by a crazy hobo just three days ago! There's a pony-eating slime monster rampaging across the northern end of the city right now! Please, please please please, take her somewhere else!"

"Aren't you supposed to be some kind of awesome, badass mercenary captain?" Redwood says sardonically.

"Yes, I thought that as well, sweetie," Cash says with a nod. "You were hired to protect a whole city, Agony. I'm sure you can keep one filly safe for a few months or a year or so."

"A year?!" I shriek, in a frequency probably beyond normal pony hearing.

"And if you can't, then I'll have you for child endangerment as well."

I can articulate no response to this other than a babble of confused spluttering.

"Great! I'll take that as a yes!" Cash grins at me. "She doesn't need much minding. Give her access to a kitchen and she'll cook for herself. Don't worry too much if she wanders off with any strange colts; she does that all the time. Try to have her in bed by twelve if you can, but don't bother arguing with her if she chooses to stay up later, because you won't win. Oh, and I don't know how long I'll be gone, but if I'm not back by August, you'll need to take care of finding a school for her. I'm sure Dragonfall has some good ones. That's all for now. Ciao!"

She quickly leans down and pulls Redwood into a hug.

"Have fun with real daddy. Cya later, sweetie!"

Then she lets go, and practically skips past me, leaving through the long tunnel leading back towards the city gates. I watch her retreating form with equal amounts of shock and dismay.

"...And I thought my mother was bad," I mutter.

Breakspear and my newest recruits, the former bandits, look like they have no idea what to think. The only two showing clear emotion are Googlymoo, barely holding back fits of laughter, and Hoofler, who is trying to kill me with his glare.

"Agony," he says through gritted teeth, edging closer to me. "You are mein ballbruder, and I love you. But you promised me you vould never reproduce vith a pureblooded Equestrian mare!"

I feel my eyelid twitch involuntarily.

"...Okay, firstly, I never promised any such thing," I say, rounding on Hoofler and poking him in the chest. "That's just something you convinced yourself I said. Two, why are you getting mad at me? I never asked for this! I didn't even know about it! If I did, I would've demanded she get an abortion. And D, that bitch had all of the girl's thestral features magically removed, so what does it matter anyway? You advocate for magical eugenics all the time! That's basically what she did!"

Hoofler sighs, closing his eyes and shaking his head.

"I am so disappointed in you, Agony. I vill see you later at ze meeting."

He trots off, head hung low, leaving me in the rain with my soldiers and the kid. I stand there for a minute, staring into space, trying to figure out what in the wide, wide world of Equestria I am supposed to do about this.

I look over to Redwood. She stares up at me with a faintly horrified expression.

"Y-You really would have had me aborted?" she asks, lip trembling slightly.

"...Uh, Yes? Duh. That's what I just said. Weren't you listening?"

She starts crying.

This filly is obviously retarded.

WHAT NEXT?:
1. Dump Redwood on a subordinate who can find a use for her in the platoon.
2. Send Redwood off to the East Side Orphanage as a peace offering.
3. Just pretend Redwood isn't there, and occasionally use her as a table.

Author's Note:

Usual thanks to Posh for his editing work, and usual reminder to vote in the comments to choose where the story progresses.

For those who never saw the preview blog for this chapter, Redwood is a character from another story of mine called Agent Redwood, a compilation of my entries from the OC Slamjam competition held several years ago. Obviously, those stories contain no Agony, because it was before I ever conceived of his character, and they're more slice-of-life than dark comedy, but I recommend checking them out if you're interested in seeing what kind of person Redwood grows into.

It's also a good example, for newcomers, of the interconnectedness of my fanfics in general. Most everything I write takes place in the same setting, what I call the Borderworld, and it's only recently that some of my long-runners have started reaching the points where I can more directly show the relationships my stories and characters have to one another.

Comments

[Oliver]

Definitely 3.

I mean, a table that is actually victoryful at something has got to be interesting!

[Stevanater]

Dump her on a subordinate

[Jaro45]

I prefer option four (4). Have your subordinates stick a knife in her back soonest. Problem solved.

If I must choose from the given options, then option one (1) is my choice.

NOW GET TO THE CAPTAIN'S MEETING AND WIN!!!

[FanOfMostEverything]

Option 2... sort of. Don't send her as a peace offering. Send her as a conqueror. Exploit that victory talent to its fullest and recruit the orphans to your cause by proxy! (It'll probably happen anyway; might as well make it happen in Agony's favor.)

Also:

"And if you can't, then I'll have you for child endangerment as well."

Lady, you brought her to Dragonfall. No jury in Equestria would convict him.

[Posh]

Option three. She'd make a poor table for most purposes, but could probably balance a coffee cup, or something.

Plus, if she's related to Agony, then sending her off to an orphanage could result in her mobilizing them for a successful victoryful coup against the Sunheart regime. And giving her to a subordinate could end with her climbing the ranks and presenting a threat to Agony's plans, himself.

No, best to keep her close.

[Hymmnos]

2. Why not acquire another army?

[DannyJ]

Pretty close one this week, but it looks like option two is our winner.

Unlike previous choices, I should note that this one will not have an immediate pay-off. Redwood will get taken the orphanage in the chapter after the next, but first we need to make a brief diversion to deal with the lieutenants meeting, and make another important choice. Hope you're all looking forward to it.