Side B - The Father

by daOtterGuy

Side B - The Father

The room was small.

Stone walls. A single overhanging light. The simplest of wooden tables.

It was sparse, simple, and Steel couldn’t be happier with it. Wide open spaces were harder to defend and even harder to keep track of. In a wide open field, you could be surrounded easily on all sides by a large enough force that could be reinforced by more enemies at anytime. In a small room, you knew exactly your situation.

You could control it.

It was what this big shot, wet behind the ears foal was trying to do.

Key word trying.

The grey earth pony with a peaked silver mane had a neutral and professional expression on his face. A standard “Look at how serious I am” stance for interrogation in the guard.

It was the completely wrong form for this situation.

Steel wasn’t a stranger, he was well known in the guard. On top of that, the pony was half of Steel’s size. It was like a mouse trying to intimidate a manticore. The mouse could pull it off, but that would take experience and a lot of luck.

No, for this situation the interrogator should be friendly and open. Make the target comfortable and more willing to start a conversation. If you did it right, the target wouldn’t even feel like they were being pressed for information.

He could remember a pony that had a knack for it. Steel would always joke he should join the guard as an interrogator.

Steel wished he would have.

Then maybe, he wouldn’t have…

“So, um Sergeant-” Steel saw the inspector’s eyes bulge out of the socket at the name, “Steel Bastion. Sergeant Steel Bastion? No, no, wait,” The pony coughed into his hoof and forced his neutral expression back on his face, “Sergeant Steel, just to confirm you are the father of one pony, Cocoa Print?”

Steel suppressed the urge to roll his eyes, “Yes, we’ve established this multiple times already.”

The inspector nodded and wrote his response in a small notebook. Steel noted it was already almost full. Presumably from whatever Flash had talked about earlier.

“And you can confirm that Cocoa Print has always been a Changeling?” The inspector asked.

Steel’s response was to furrow his brow, scowl and give his patented drill-sergeant-scolding-dumb-recruits expression.

The inspector fidgeted with his pencil, “We need you to say it for the record,” Steel continued to glare, “Sir.”

“Yes, Cocoa has always been a Changeling,” Steel was going to stop, but his mouth got the better of him, “Twit.”

The inspector gulped and recorded Steel’s response in his notebook.

Steel eyed the door. It was simple, wooden and easily smashed.

He could make a run for it. Not deal with this stupidity. Tend to his son. His injured son. Flash was with him, but he wasn’t Cocoa’s father. Even if Cocoa was grown up and living on his own that didn’t mean Steel stopped being a dad.

Especially when…

Especially when he only had one father left.

“Sir,” The Inspector stated, “Are you alright?”

Steel gazed at the door a moment longer before turning back to the Inspector. Even though he wanted to go, leaving would look bad on Cocoa and Steel wouldn’t bring trouble to his son.

“Yes, carry on.”

“Alright, then next we’ll need an account of Cocoa’s foalhood,” The inspector stated.

“His foalhood?” Steel asked in confusion, “How much do you need to know?”

The Inspector looked askance, “All of it.”

“All of...” Steel growled, “You can’t be serious? Do you even know how much time that will take?”

“We need it for Cocoa’s trial,” The Inspector was visibly sweating, “To gather information and decide on the severity of his crimes and punish him accordingly. Whether that be deportation, arrest, or otherwise.”

The inspector flinched. Steel presumed it was because of whatever expression was on his face. If it matched his rage then he would flinch too.

He hadn’t even pretended to think that Cocoa was innocent. He would never side with that bitch queen. Removing the fact that Cocoa hated her with every fiber of his being, he would never betray his family.

Especially not…

Steel turned to the left wall.

From experience, he knew that the wall was actually a one way enchanted mirror that let the ponies on the mirror side listen in on the conversation taking place on the wall side. Unicorn spellcraft really was quite impressive.

The mirror was specifically used by high ranking military and Princess Celestia.

Considering who was involved, Steel would bet a large number of bits that she was definitely behind the wall. Listening.

He really didn’t want to talk about Cocoa’s foalhood. Not because of Cocoa. Cocoa was great. Raising him was the only fond memory Steel had of that time.

No, he didn’t want to because of the other pony involved.

The pony he didn’t want to remember.

He didn’t want to relive his life with the illness.

The thing that took his husband away from him.

Even Steel’s memory of him.

“Alright,” Steel took a deep breath, “If it helps my son, I’ll talk about his past. It started when I returned from a particularly long tour of the dragonlands...”