Picking Up the Pieces

by Evilhumour

Chapter Seven: Deep Blade

Chapter Seven

Deep Blade

Running through the streets, Deep Blade was seriously regretting not ordering a lift as it began to rain down on his head.

He let out a small sigh; the rain storms in Prance were so much smoother and enjoyable than in Canterlot. In Mareis, a stallion could enjoy the light downpour that the weather team brought out; take long walks and admire all the artitecture that the Mareisians had in their city, the big stuff and the small little treasures you could only find after stumbling around with a slight buzz from drinking a Mareisian under the table. You could sit on a balcony and paint for hours or try to cease living from the intense hangover from drinking a Mareisian under the table. There was also just enjoying the storm with a nice glass of wine in front of the fireplace or with an open-minded mare or two at your side, something which he had experienced more than a few times and smiled from the memories.

But he had wanted a new scene and new challenges to be inspired again, so the Academy seemed to be interesting choice and he had applied to be a teacher. And while he did his best to help inspire his students, they helped inspire him as well and he had began to do some more of his high praised art again. As well as help him learn what an art teacher actually did and how he was supposed to grade them.

So he had to deal with Canterlot heavy hoofed style of rainstorms that drove any sensible pony inside and with him being stuck in the Upper due to that’s where the Academy was and where he was expected to be, he couldn’t go out to the bars for nights on end or find any hidden gems in the city that hadn’t been found already. And there were so few mares he could actually share a bed with that wouldn’t end up biting him in the plot that it just wasn’t worth the risk of a scandal breaking out and having his family breathe down his neck about getting a mare pregnant.

Crooked had already made Mom and Dad happy by giving them a grandfoal, he didn’t need to add to it and get lectured for not being married when or if he did it. Although there were a lot of mares in his black book who would kill to be in his family, there was no real mare he could bring home without the entire thing being awkward due to how he met the majority of them and he didn’t have a real connection with any of them besides sleeping with them or drawing them in risque paintings for private galleries.

Sweet Luna, if Mom ever saw any of his waterfall fillies paintings, he would just die!

“Sweet fuck,” he swore as he got splashed by passing by wagon, shaking himself dry as he shook a hoof at the mountain griffon taking the cart away.

Grumbling loudly, he shook his head and was ready to kill Crooked for dragging him out into this storm. If he hadn’t got the call with their emergency code, he would have stayed back in his studio apartment.

But something had happened between his parents and Night that caused Crooked to call him u-

“Deep?” a voice caused him to snap his head upwards as he saw his sister staring at him. Serrated was wearing a very fancy dress with an umbrella held up by her wing and of course, she was frowning at him, no doubt judging him again. “Why,” she clicked her tongue with Deep rolling his eyes at her. “Are you walking in the rain without a jacket, a hat or anything?”

“Because sis,” he rolled his words as he did a short bow that made her snort. “When I heard that something was Fruit Juice level bad, I ran straight out of my apartment and didn’t bother to put a fancy dress on like some ponies.”

“Well Deep, I doubt you would look as good in it as I do but you could always try,” Serrated grinned at him causing Deep to scowl but he didn’t push as she let him get under the umbrella and out of the rain. “So what do you think happened?”

“And I am good too, Serrated, thank you for asking,” Deep said with Serrated giving him a glare before tilting her umbrella enough that he got wet again.

“Sorry Deep, how are you and I must ask do you have any idea what could have happened?”

“I’m good although a bit wet and wishing to hug my sister,” Deep said teasingly.

“Do it and die, this is a Sassy Saddles original,” Serrated hissed with her fangs out.

“If I wanted to die by a mare attacking me, I wouldn’t go for my sister,” he responded. “But in all seriousness, no, I don’t have a clue what happened, just that it involved Mom and Dad and Night.”

Serrated let out a small hiss and Deep couldn’t help himself from doing the same. A few months ago, during the Honour Festival, a number of those purple Guards had barged into his classroom and ordered him to come with them for questioning. While he was annoyed by the interruption, he knew better than to argue with them and did his best to answer their questions about Night which amounted to nothing. He had heard that Serrated had been dragged off the stage to be questioned about the same thing, Hidden was forced out of a very important business meeting by them and even Crooked and Striking had been under intense scrutiny because of Night. Apparently his little brother, something he still wasn’t used to, had been accused of plotting regicide of all things and they had damning evidence against him and a few others he was apparently working with. Deep had initially tried to dismiss it but he had nothing to really counter the accusations. Then the next day, Night and his band of so-called terrorists had actually blown up the power plant which had caused Deep to rethink what little he knew about his brother’s true nature.

Then he’d heard about Night’s fight in the Everfree forest and how they were calling Night the Butcher of the Everfree Forest now. He had gone on a bit of a rant when some of his students drew what they thought happened there and had totally defended himself properly when the dean had stormed over. That was what Emerald Forte, his lawyer, had told him after she came by, anyways. She was such a good help and he had been so lucky to find and hire her as his personal lawyer. He still needed to find her a good stallion that wouldn’t be one of those scuzzballs who were only interested in one night stands.

Shaking his head as he got distracted again - he would need to listen to Emerald Forte and eat things to bring his sugar level up or down or whatever his food intake was supposed to be - and thought about Night again. How quiet things became after the Everfree Forest incident with the paper claiming that the Questioning Order was helping them now which made no sense as one of them was a changeling; then the news about the sudden uprising in the Crystal Dominance and finally the visit from the Cuanmiztl Kingdom’s royalty, which was also helping them… and then things had really turned on their head when it was announced that Night and his friends were actually heroes being framed by the real bad guy, whom they’d defeated and driven out of Equestria for good with that rainbow causing everypony to have a miniature magic surges. Of course any details were being kept strictly classified, but the gist of it had gotten out.

“Any idea to what Night could have done?” Serrated asked as they turned the corner of the block.

“Nope, no idea whatsoever,” Deep replied. “Maybe he got a mare pregnant?”

“No, Crooked would’ve called a Deep Finally Knocked A Mare Up alert if that was the case,” Serrated said with a small smile on her face.

“Excuse me‽” Deep reared, flicking his wings out. “Why am I the one for that alert‽”

“Well, we all thought if anypony would get a kid out of marriage, it would be you,” Serrated shot back as she danced out of the way from the water on his wings.

Deep was about to counter this when he stopped and actually thought it through. “Eh, I can see it,” he said with a shrug of his shoulders. “But I don’t know if I can see Night in a relationship, or even something frivolous that could produce a foal.”

“Neither can I,” Serrated sighed. “Honestly, I can’t think of anything he could possibly have done outside of what was already in the news.” She cocked her head. “Are you sure you can’t think of anything either?”

“No,” Deep replied, tilting his head. “We’ve had almost no interactions, aside from being in the same room during family get togethers that we are all forced to attend and the day he inherited Determined Point from me.”

“Really?” Serrated gave him a look. “I’d think you’d know him at least a little better than that… at least enough to make some kind of guess.”

“Do you know him that well?” Deep countered. “I mean, I can’t really recall the last time that Crooked issued a Fruit Juice,” he said as he trailed off, tilting his head to the other side. “Beyond the time you took the family’s skimmi-”

“We do not talk about that, Deep,” Serrated growled as she blushed, twitching her purple wings. “...and thanks for covering for me back then.”

“Eh, I was used to having Mom and Dad disappointed in me back then, wasn’t that big of a deal,” Deep shrugged. “Beside, it was a fun way to start a semi vacation in Los Pegasus, right sis?”

Serrated hesitated for a moment, then nodded with a smile on her lips. “Yeah, it was, kind of.” Then she quirked her head. “Speaking of skimmers, how do you think Night met that minotaur who had her crazy driving plastered all the papers a few months back?”

“The Goddesses only know,” Deep sighed. “I suppose one of these days we’ll find out.”

Serrated nodded her head as they turned along the streets they had played in as foals and saw Blade manor standing tall in the rainstorm with three ponies standing in the doorway.

Crooked was standing next to Hidden, his brother still dressed in his Royal Guard uniform and Hidden was dressed in a business suit while Clean Home had a towel levitating in his magic.

“Good, you two are home,” Crooked said as Clean Home placed the towel over his head while taking Serrated’s umbrella. “We can-”

“Hello Crooked, Hidden, how are you two?” Deep said as he rubbed his head dry. “Serrated and I are fine, thank you for asking and why did you just have one towel, Home?”

“Because sir,” the old unicorn said with his droll voice. “Out of all of your siblings, you would be the only one not to bring a rainjacket or an umbrella.”

Deep shrugged his shoulders as Crooked sighed heavily into his hoof with Hidden doing the same.

“He is right, you know,” Serrated said with a smirk. “You are like that.”

“Lay off me, would ya?” Deep sighed. “Can we please go inside so we can find out what all this is about?”

Crooked nodded. “Quite.” Turning around and heading into the foyer, Crooked allowed Clean Home to take his coat and hang it up while Deep examined the room. It hadn’t changed all that much since he had left home. Still a cold, stark room with the massive family portrait of Dad and Mom, with the four of them in a row beneath them. Crooked and Hidden doing their weird twin lookalike thing with Serrated next to one of them and Deep on the other side. There was a smaller portrait of Night attached to it as if it were to fool anypony that it was an addition. Maybe if the pony was a complete idiot and couldn’t tell that the background colours did not match, the dimensions were off in the two paintings and Night was facing the wrong way compared to the bigger painting. Deep knew that it had been on the back burner to update it but there was always so little time for all of them to be together and have enough time to stand still for a painting.

Shaking his head, Deep followed his brother and his sisters to the left, into the manor’s drawing room.

As the four entered, Sweet Dagger looked up from where she had been sitting, wringing her hooves, but said nothing. Neither did Lethal Blade, who was staring moodily out one of the windows. Clean Home had reappeared with drinks on a serving tray, with Deep smelling peach, apple, pumpkin, strawberry, orange and cherry giving them out to his Mom, Dad, brother, Hidden, Serrated and himself.

Moving in front of the mantel with the drink held by his wing, Crooked waited for the others to find their seats, and when they had, he looked around, a serious expression on his face. “Earlier today, I had a meeting with an ahuizotless by the name of Xvital, an associate of Night’s,” he stated a bit chipped, telling Deep his brother was worried. “She had apparently witnessed something that she did not fully understand, and was hoping I could explain it.” His eyes drifted to Lethal and Crooked before looking forwards. “Namely, she wanted to know about the relationship that our youngest brother had with our parents and why, when he met them earlier today, he went berserk, as the lady put it.”

“Berserk?” Deep started to rise out of his seat. “What-”

“As I understand it,” Crooked gave him a look, and he backed into his seat again. “There was a great deal of yelling on Night’s part about how he wanted you two out of his life. However, I was unable to learn much more than that, as the lady lost her own temper and stormed out on me soon after telling me this.” He turned to his parents. “Would either of you care to fill in the details?”

Lethal and Sweet looked at each other guiltily and squirmed for a moment before their Dad turned his head to face them. “We had finally learned where they, the Royal Guards,” he paused to look at Crooked which caused his brother to gulp a bit, although he tried to hide it behind a drink of his pumpkin drink. “Were keeping Night and those others out of the public view. We were trying to talk to him when… the fight happened.” He paused, with Mom resting a hoof on his shoulder. “He started to yell at us, accusing us of ruining him and messing his life up. That we only cared about him now and he wanted us to stay out of his life for good.”

“That little-” Hidden began only for Mom to raise her wing.

“He then brought up his talentmitzvah and…” she trailed off with choked sob. “He is completely right.”

“That’s not possible,” Hidden said firmly. “You were great parents. A little stern at times, but what parent isn’t?”

“She’s right,” Serrated chimed in. “We know you’re wonderful ponies, and you raised us all well…”

“That is very kind of you to say, but I’m afraid we did make a lot of mistakes with Night,” Lethal said tiredly. “We may not have recognized it at the time, but the way he threw it in our faces today… no, I can’t say he was entirely wrong. Especially about that day.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Deep said as he tried to get a word in. “What exactly happened during Night’s talentmitzvah? I don’t even remember reading about it in the papers or anything.”

“And ours were the talk of the town,” Hidden gestured to the four of them.

Immediately, both of his parents shared a guilty look before Dad started to speak again. “Well as you are all aware we had planned to retire from both the business and the whole social nonsense when Night was born. We had to take charge of the business again,” Deep turned his head to see Hidden nod her head, reminding him that she had to deal with Mom and Dad on a semi regular basis as they were now part of the board. “We did our best to avoid the whole ordeal with the other nobles but when Night got his talent emblem, we were obligated to invite them to his talentmitzvah. And we had to make sure that they were properly catered for, so we had to hire some of the best for the party. And then they brought some of their hanger-ons and…”

“Oh my Luna, you two didn’t, did you?” Serrated groaned into her hoof with Crooked and Hidden sharing the same stunned look. “You actually turned his party into a stuffy adult party?”

Sweet licked her lips and shared a look with Lethal and let out a sigh. “We did and we were completely focused on making sure all of our guests were enjoying themselves and…”

“And then Night got upset at the lack of attention and began making a scene in front of everypony.”

“And then you two probably did what happened when we acted out, right?” Deep asked, shaking his head in disbelief. “You two actually grounded him on his talentmitzvah day. No wonder he’s so mad.”

“But not enough to hold it for… how many years was it?” Crooked asked, going from angered to confused as he considered the question. Deep was embarrassed himself that he didn’t know when Night got his talent emblem and he was partly responsible for it!

“Fourteen years,” Lethal replied. “He’s said as little as possible to us in all that time…”

Crooked nodded, and Deep Blade could just see the wheels spinning in his brother’s head.

“But you guys did go to him afterwards and explain stuff, right?” Hidden said with a bit of desperation in her voice that was only made worse by how neither of their parents answered right away.

“We were going to talk to him when the party was over but he was fast asleep by then and… and with one thing after the other, we just never got around to it the next day,” Sweet admitted. “We were actually waiting for him to apologize to give him… give him… no please tell us we did not.” Sweet then got up and walked over to the false wall panel and removed it. She then began to fish around for something. She let out a surprise jolt before she started to cry in earnest.

The reason for why became swiftly obvious as she pulled out a small, dust covered gift, and Lethal walked to over her and began to hold her close.

“Mom, Dad, that’s Night’s talentmitzvah gift, isn’t it?” Deep asked as he slid down in his seat and took a drink from his glass of cherry soda only for it to taste sour when they nodded their heads.

“And you’ve held onto it all this time…” Crooked pondered.

“No, they forgot about it, Crooks,” Hidden said. She shook her head. “I can’t believe it…”

“We really did mess up with him, didn’t we?” Serrated asked. “Not just Mom and Dad - all of us. I mean…”

“It’s just like Xvital said to me today,” Crooked admitted. “She said we could have at least kept in touch with him, like we did with one another… but we all had our own lives to live, and we didn’t even think about how our distances could affect him.”

“Some of us more so than others,” Deep added. “Heck, I was out of the country for most of his life, now that I think about it.”

“So what do we do now?” Serrated asked. “I mean, it’s not like we can go back and change history.”

“No.” Crooked’s face suddenly turned more serious than it had been. “But we can at least try to apologize.”

“How are we going to do that without getting our heads bitten off?” Hidden asked. “If he flipped out at Mom and Dad…”

“He yelled at us because of what we did,” Lethal broke in. “You four, on the other hoof, have never done anything to directly earn his ire - not that I know of, at least. Perhaps he’ll actually listen to you, instead of… snapping, like he did with us.”

Crooked nodded. “Though I suspect it would be better if I… stayed back a bit,” he said. “At least, if Xvital is around. The last time I saw her, she was quite angry with me after I admitted how little contact Night and I had ever had. Night himself might be more willing to listen to me though - she said he’d given her my contact number so she could talk to me.”

“We’ll figure that out when we get there,” Deep said. “Wherever there is.” He gave his parents a look.

Lethal nodded and, taking a quill and sheet of paper out of a nearby drawer, began writing something. “Here’s the address,” he said. “And I really, really hope I’m right that Night will be willing to listen to the four of you.”

Crooked accepted the paper. “I hope you’re right too, Dad,” he said quietly.

The four siblings got up and headed for the door. As they entered the foyer and began preparing for the trip out, Deep glanced at his brother. “So, how did this Xvital come to be in the same place as Night when Mom and Dad went to visit him, anyway?”

“If I am not mistaken, she was one of the five who were, along with Night, being framed for treason against the Crown,” Crooked said as he got his coat on. “How they first met, I never found out.”

“Guess it’s one of the things we’ll have to ask when we get there,” Deep said with a sigh. “And all the rest of them too.”

“I think,” Crooked said, a mysterious look on his face, “That we will find at least one of his companions has known him for a lot longer than the rest.”

“Oh?” Hidden looked up. “What do you mean?”

“That, dear twin, is for me to know and you to be surprised by.” Crooked gave her a smirk.

“...You realize I’m going to get you for that.”

“We’ll see, little sister. We’ll see.”

“You don’t have to call me little, I’m less than a minute younger than you!”

“One minute younger or ten, you’re still by definition my little sister.”

Hidden gave him a loud hiss, then stalked over to the door, where Serrated was waiting with an amused look on her face.

“You know she’s going to do something terrible to you,” Deep muttered out of the corner of his mouth.

“She has the necessary enthusiasm, the inventiveness, the experience… I have the resources and training of the Royal Guards," Crooked mouthed back.

“Remind me again who short-sheeted your bed, while you were sleeping in it, without getting caught that time after you decapitated her dolls?”

Crooked’s face reddened. “They were enemy soldiers, I’ve told you this countless times.”

“If you two are finished whispering like a couple of gossipy little school-fillies,” Serrated remarked from her spot by the door, “We’re ready to go.”

Crooked’s face turned even redder, while Deep just chuckled as he grabbed an umbrella. “We’re coming, sis.”

Comments

[Joeyjambo122]

8395867
Nice to see that Blade's family is at least going to try to understand what is going on.

[Evilhumour]

8407877
Eeyup.

[Brave Stomp]

So as someone who has just been working my way through the chapters of this fic and its predisessor, I would love nothing more than to tell you that this has been an excellent read Mr Humor. You have done a remarkable job with world building and I am happy to have found this piece of fiction. Your story deserves more readers to say the least.

One question with this chapter that i have been wondering about from the end of the previous story until now. Is Harmony attempting to for lack of a better term "Course-correct" for all of the things Balance did to force its end result? Things seem to be going our heros ways, particularly with Nights family only now making this realization and if so is Harmony going to fess up to its elements and the other Powers That Be?

Anyway I look forwards to seeing wher you go with the rest of this story and wish you the best of luck with all of your future projects.

[Evilhumour]

8590746

Thank you very much. It is always lovely to hear how much people enjoy my/our work (by the way, Evilhumour is my full name, not my first and last online name). We really strived to make this, and the rest of the multiverse, unique and fleshed out as possible and the only way I could get more readers if I had cover art.

If I said anything, that would be spoilers.

Thank you very much.

[Copper Springs]

8590746
I hadn't considered that Harmony might be influencing things. It would make a lot of sense though.

[Copper Springs]

Glad to know what happened with the talentmizvah. And after reading this, I hate Balance even more. I'm glad that his siblings are are going to try to make up for some things. I also loved the new perspective. It was nice to meet he rest of the Blade siblings. I can't wait to see how they interact with the others.

[Asolem2]

“Because sir,” the old unicorn said with his droll voice. “Out of all of your siblings, you would be the only one not to bring a rainjacket or an umbrella.”

He's worked here a while