SAPR

by Scipio Smith

In Her Heart (New)

In Her Heart

“And we’re all done now, right?” Penny asked as she walked through the door into RSPT’s room in Atlas Academy.

“All done,” Twilight confirmed. “The rest of the day is your own.”

“There isn’t much of the day left,” Penny grumbled.

Twilight didn’t deny it. “I know … okay, I don’t know, but … I’m sorry that this is frustrating, Penny, but your father just wants to make sure that everything is working as it should be after your refit.”

“I know,” Penny muttered, not bothering to add that everything was working fine and she didn’t need a battery of tests that seemed to be nearly incessant to tell her that. There was no point in saying so. Twilight wouldn’t have understood, after all.

Just like she wouldn’t have understood what Penny meant when she said that she suspected her father was deliberately dragging her into the lab for more and more tests just so that he could keep an eye on her.

Or perhaps Twilight would understand, but she would pretend not to.

Twilight’s mouth opened, and then closed again very quickly, but then opened again as she said, “Is there anything that you need?”

Penny looked around the room. Aside from Twilight and herself, it was empty, with neither Ciel nor Rainbow Dash in evidence. “Where are the others?” she asked.

“Ciel went back to Mantle to spend some time with her family, and Rainbow is flying Applejack to Canterlot,” Twilight said. “I think she’s planning to stay the weekend, but she’ll be back on Monday.”

“I see,” Penny said.

“Do you want me to stick around?” Twilight asked. “We could—”

“No,” Penny replied quickly. “It’s fine. I’m sure you’ve got stuff to do.”

Twilight frowned ever so slightly above her spectacles. “I have time for you, Penny.”

Penny turned to her and smiled. “Twilight, I’m not a little kid; you don’t need to watch me in case I get into trouble. You go on, I’ll be fine. You had plans, didn’t you?” Twilight was the kind of person who seemed as though she always had plans.

“Well, I was going to take Blake to the Observatory,” Twilight admitted. “But—”

“Go,” Penny insisted. “I don’t want to spoil your fun. I’ll be fine.”

Nevertheless, Twilight hesitated. “You won’t get into any trouble, will you?”

Penny pouted a little. “Twilight!”

Twilight chuckled. “Okay, I’m sorry, you’re right. You’re not a little kid, and you can be left alone by yourself. And I guess I’ll do just that. Goodnight, Penny.”

“Goodnight, Twilight!” Penny cried, waving to her with one hand. “Have fun.”

Twilight smiled, and was still smiling as she turned away and walked out of the dorm room. The door slid closed behind her.

Penny waited for a few moments, mentally counting to herself so that she was waiting for Twilight to get down the corridor, away from the room.

Then she said a rude word, because there was nobody around to scold her for it.

This was going to be fantastic! Nobody to be in charge of her, nobody to watch over her, nobody to tell her what she could or couldn’t do, nobody to say that it was improper or undignified, nobody, in short, to tell her ‘no.’

It was going to be great! She could do anything she wanted!

She had no idea what to do.

Penny flopped down onto the nearest bottom bunk, sitting down heavily upon it as the mattress gave way beneath her.

She bounced slightly up and down upon it, tapping her hands upon the dark quilt that sat on top of the bed.

What could she do? What could she do?

What couldn’t she do? She was all alone; she could do anything she wanted to! Ciel was gone, and Rainbow wasn’t coming back tonight. Penny could stay up all night; she could stay up all night playing video games! She could watch all the movies that Ciel said were inappropriate for her. She could break cur— okay, no, she couldn’t break curfew; just because Rainbow and Ciel weren’t here didn’t mean she’d be allowed out of the Academy. Even though the semester had ended, the Academy and its students were still subject to military discipline while they were rooming on Academy grounds — Twilight wasn’t rooming on Academy grounds, neither was Ciel for now, and Rainbow had probably been given a pass.

Penny was not so lucky.

That rather put a crimp in what she could do, given that it wasn’t as if she could go into Atlas.

Still, there were things that she could do in the Academy, right?

Right?

Penny lay down on her back, looking up at the top of the pod-like bunk in which she was partially enclosed.

What could she do? What should she do?

What did she want to do?

Penny rolled over onto her front, kicking her legs up and down.

What was this feeling? Was she … was she bored? How could she be bored? This was her chance to do whatever she wanted!

Except that she couldn’t think of anything she wanted to do!

Penny pouted. Where was Ciel when you needed her?

She was almost certain that she was being childish about this, but everyone kept treating her like a child, so why shouldn’t she behave childishly sometimes?

She sat up once more, the pout still set upon her face. She couldn’t just sit here all night until Rainbow Dash came back!

Well, perhaps she could, but she didn’t want to. Apart from anything else, it would be embarrassing, even if no one ever found out about it; Penny would know, and she would feel embarrassed regardless.

Penny got up, pacing up and down the dorm room, causing the door to slide open a couple of times as she got close enough to it to trigger the motion sensor, even though she didn’t actually leave the room.

Perhaps she ought to leave the room. Perhaps she ought to go and … and do what? She didn’t really know any of the other students.

Perhaps she should try and make some new friends?

How? Well, obviously by…

By…

Huh. It hadn’t occurred to Penny until this point just how incredibly lucky she’d been to run into Ruby and Pyrrha and have everything work out the way it had. Faced with the task of meeting new people without a fortuitous set of circumstances to bring them together, she found herself in a little bit of a quandary.

Penny was not unaware that she could come across as … a little odd. And in the back of her mind, she could still remember what Blake had said during their mission to Cold Harbour, about how people didn’t like things — or people — that were different from them. The idea of having to approach others by herself, unaided … well, it caused no small amount of trepidation on her part.

Perhaps she should give up on that idea and just call Ruby or Pyrrha and see if they were around for her to talk to.

That would be easier. And it would give her something to do. For a while, anyway.

And at some point, she should maybe apologise to Ciel for not realising all the things she did for Penny.

Penny’s thoughts were interrupted as her scroll went off. The buzzing sound seemed louder than normal in the hitherto silent dorm room, and the sudden noise made Penny jump just a little bit before she realised what it was. She got out her scroll. She didn’t recognise the number that was calling; it wasn’t anyone in her contact list.

She wondered if she ought to answer. Ciel had been quite clear on answering calls from strangers; Rainbow had told her that if you didn’t recognise a number, it was probably somebody trying to sell you something, but Ciel had hinted at much darker possibilities besides. Either way, they had both agreed that the best thing to do was not to answer.

But then, they weren’t here, were they?

But that didn’t mean that it was bad advice.

But their advice was so suffocating sometimes.

But look at what a state she’d gotten herself into without either of them around!

But she was really bored and wanted something to do, and maybe she could practice trying to talk to new people on whoever was trying to sell her … whatever.

And if it was anything bad, then she could always hang up, right?

Penny pressed the green icon to take the call.

She didn’t recognise the number, but she recognised the face that instantly filled up her screen, from his soft brown eyes to his grey beard to the olive green cap that he wore on top of his head.

Her eyes widened. “Uncle Pietro?”

Pietro smiled. “Please, Penny, don’t you think that you could call me ‘Dad’?”

Penny smiled back. “I … I’d like that, Dad.”

Pietro laughed softly. “It … I know this might sound selfish, but it’s good to hear that word in your voice. It sounds … beautiful.”

“How did you get my number?” Penny asked.

“Rainbow Dash gave it to me,” Pietro said.

“'Rainbow Dash'?” Penny repeated. “You’ve seen Rainbow Dash?”

“She came down to Mantle to talk to me,” Pietro explained. “She gave me your number so that I could give you a call, so that we could talk, from time to time. If you don’t mind, that is.”

“No, I don’t mind,” Penny said quickly. She hadn’t been allowed to have any contact with her un— with her dad since … since just after she’d been … awakened or born or finished or whatever. He was in her very earliest memories, and she had called him Dad, then, while calling Father … Father. She called them by what they had asked to be called.

And then, one day, Dad was gone. Dad was gone and Father wouldn’t explain why, except to say that ‘Uncle Pietro’ — he wouldn’t hear of him being called Dad in his presence — wasn’t going to be coming around anymore.

It was Twilight who had explained to her why her Dad, or her uncle, wouldn’t be around any more: that he and Father had had a disagreement about Penny, and about Penny’s going to the Academy and entering the Vytal Festival. At the time, Penny had heard the words without really understanding them, but she felt she had a much better understanding now.

“You … you didn’t want this for me, did you, Dad?” she asked.

Pietro was quiet for a moment. “No, sweetheart, no, I didn’t,” he said. “I wanted … I suppose I wanted a little girl to love, and to love me back, and maybe that was selfish of me in its own way, but … well, it doesn’t really matter now? All water under the bridge. At least, it’s not what I called you to talk about. How are you doing, Penny?”

“I’m a little bored right now,” Penny said. “I thought it would be nice being all on my own without anyone to tell me what to do, but after spending so much time with other people telling me what to do, I don’t know what to do without them around.”

Pietro laughed. “That’s a hazard of growing up, one that we all have to deal with sooner or later. I remember the first time that Japeth and I were old enough for our mom to leave us home by ourselves. She was very glad of it; it saved her a fortune in childcare arrangements … or that’s what she thought before we nearly blew up the house with one of our experiments.”

Penny let out a laugh. “What were you doing?”

“We had an idea for something we called a ‘Ground Bridge,’” Pietro explained. “The gist of it was that if the CCT can transmit information across continents nearly instantaneously, then we thought it might be possible to transmit people and objects in the same way. Just imagine it: no more need for lengthy, dust-consuming airship trips between kingdoms; you just step onto a bridge in Atlas or Mantle and are transported to Vale or Mistral in moments.”

“That sounds amazing,” Penny agreed; she could just go back to Beacon to see Ruby tonight and be back before Rainbow Dash returned.

“As a theory, it definitely had a lot of appeal,” Pietro said. “But we never could get it to work, even though we went back to it a couple of times when we were grown up. I guess it’s one of those ideas that’s meant to stay confined to realms of theory. Suffice to say that, after the first time, Mom laid down some ground rules on what we were and weren’t allowed to do when we were home alone.” He paused. “But I wasn’t just asking about how you were doing right now. I mean, more generally, how are you?”

“More generally, I’m fine,” Penny said. “I’m looking forward to the Vytal Festival; I don’t know if I can win the tournament, because my friend Pyrrha is—”

“Penny,” Pietro said, gently but firmly, cutting her off. “Come on, now, you can be honest with me.”

Penny blinked. “Honest about what, Dad?”

“I know,” Pietro said, putting emphasis upon the word ‘know’. “I know that you know about Japeth, that he … that he’s…”

“Dying,” Penny murmured. It was the first time that she had said the word out loud, at least when talking about her father. It was the first time since hearing it that she had really thought about it, and she hadn’t thought about it much at the time. “Yes, I know. I heard him telling Rainbow and Ciel. You know, as well?”

“I’ve known for a long time,” Pietro said. “I’ve known … I’ve always known it was a possibility, same as Japeth. It’s a genetic condition; our mother had it. In a way, Japeth is lucky that it took so long to manifest in him … although not as lucky as I am, I admit. It can’t have been easy, finding out that way.”

“I couldn’t talk,” Penny said softly. “I couldn’t move. I couldn’t do anything except listen.”

Pietro sighed. “I … Japeth and I don’t agree upon a lot of things, but I know that isn’t how he would have liked for you to find that out.”

“Would he have wanted me to find out at all?” Penny asked.

“I … don’t know,” Pietro admitted. “Maybe not until after he was gone, maybe not even then; maybe he would have liked for everyone to have kept it a secret from you why he died. There’s a reason it isn’t publicised—”

“He said it was because he would be sent on leave, to rest,” Penny said.

“Maybe that’s a part of it,” Pietro replied. “But I think the more important reason is that he’s a proud man, and he doesn’t want anyone to see him as being less than what he was, what he’s seen to be. He doesn’t want anyone to look at him with pity. I suppose I can understand that. I don’t have much of a choice, with how visible this chair of mine is. I get plenty of pitying looks whether I want them or not, but that doesn’t mean I like it.”

He shook his head.

“But here I am, talking about myself again, when I called you to talk about you.” He paused. “Rainbow Dash came to see me because you haven’t talked to anyone about this. Not to her, not to Ciel Soleil or Twilight, not to your friends at Beacon that she told me about.”

“Maybe Rainbow Dash should mind her own business,” Penny muttered.

“Penny,” Pietro said, in a tone of gentle reproach. “She’s just worried about you. She’s worried that … well, let’s just say that she’s worried. And she asked me to call you to see … how are you doing, Penny? How are you feeling?”

“About this?” Penny asked in return. “About Father?”

Pietro nodded. “Exactly.”

Penny was silent for a moment. “I … I don’t know,” she admitted. There was a reason — there were several reasons — why she hadn’t spoken to Ciel or Rainbow or even to Ruby or Pyrrha about this, and the fact that she wasn’t sure how she was feeling was one of them. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to think about this.”

“'Supposed to think'?” Pietro repeated. “Penny, you’re not supposed to think anything or feel anything. It only matters what you do think, what you do feel?”

“Do you mean that?” Penny asked. “Do you really, truly mean it?”

Pietro frowned a little. “Penny, what’s this about?”

Again, Penny took a few moments of pause before she replied, “Rainbow told you about my friends I met at Beacon, about Ruby Rose and Pyrrha Nikos?”

Pietro nodded. “She did, yes. They seem like very nice people.”

“They are, they’re the best,” Penny assured him. “Did Rainbow Dash tell you that Ruby’s mother was a huntress, and that she died?”

“No,” Pietro said softly. “No, it didn’t come up. I guess Rainbow didn’t think it was relevant.”

“Ruby was only very young when she lost her mother,” Penny continued. “And I don’t think that she remembers her very well, but … but she misses her. I think she misses her a whole lot. I think … it’s like she’s standing in her mother’s shadow, trying to grow into it. I … I believe that Pyrrha was older when she lost her father, and that she remembers him better, although she doesn’t talk about it, so I could be wrong.”

“Penny,” Pietro murmured. “I’m afraid that I don’t see—”

“I daren’t talk to them about this because they wouldn’t understand why I’m not sad!” Penny cried, her voice rising, her eyes widening as she bent over a little bit. “I know that I’m supposed to be sad,” she repeated. “I’m supposed to be sad, like … I’m supposed to feel so bad about what’s happening to Father, and it’s supposed to drown out all my other feelings, and nothing else should matter to me except how little time he has left, but … but that’s not how I feel.”

Now, it was Pietro’s turn to fall temporarily silent. At last, in a voice that was, for the moment, free from the judgement that Penny feared, he said, “And how do you feel, Penny?”

“I feel…” Penny hesitated.

“You can be honest,” Pietro assured her. “Whatever you have to say, I won’t judge. I’m listening. That’s all I’m here to do, is listen.”

Penny closed her eyes for a moment. “Father … he had … he had no right to create me just for himself, to make himself stand taller, to make himself look better! I’m not his legacy; I’m myself! I’m me, I’m a person, and he doesn’t see it at all! And I can’t … I can’t just forgive him for that because he … because he’s dying.”

Penny bowed her head. “I’m a terrible person, aren’t I?”

“No,” Pietro said, quietly but fiercely. “No, Penny, you’re not a terrible person. You’re just a person, like all the rest of us. A person a lot like Japeth, in point of fact.”

Penny looked up. “Like Father, really?”

Pietro sighed. “Japeth always said that I was a momma’s boy,” he said wistfully, looking away from Penny and into some distantly remembered past that existed only now in memory and recollection. “And I suppose that was true enough. We both had our mother’s brains, but … in most other ways, Japeth took after our father. Pair of snapping turtles, both of them, incapable of suffering fools, always quick with a cutting rebuke or an impatient word. Naturally, they could barely stand one another. Oh, the fights they used to have.”

He chuckled, although Penny couldn’t see what was so funny about it.

She didn’t ask. Not right now. It didn’t seem particularly important.

“It’s ironic, in some ways,” Pietro went on. “Japeth took after our father, but he inherited Mom’s condition. I was more like our mother, but I got Dad’s bad back. Teach me to spend so much time sitting around laboratories, I suppose.

“Technology wasn’t quite so advanced back then; chairs like mine didn’t exist, so when things got really bad for Dad, he … he ended up just sitting around in the living room, enthroned in that huge armchair of his, barking orders, waiting for the gods to take him away.

“He sat there when Mom got sick. By the end, she was upstairs in her room, lying in bed, not able to do much of anything, and he was downstairs, in that big armchair, complaining that she wouldn’t come down to him.”

“Didn’t he understand?” Penny asked. “Didn’t he care?”

“I don’t know,” Pietro admitted. “I couldn’t see into his heart, or tell you what he was thinking. I’m not sure if he was thinking much of anything, to tell you the truth. He loved our mother, I’m sure of that — the way he acted when she was gone was proof of that — but … Japeth couldn’t ever forgive him for the way that he acted in those last few months. Even when Dad was dying himself, that anger … it never went away.”

“And … and when he was gone?” Penny asked softly. “How did Father feel then?”

“You’d have to ask him about that,” Pietro said. “My point is that I can’t tell you how to feel, and no one can, no one has the right, least of all Japeth. You don’t have to forgive him just because he won’t be around forever, or even for very long; I’m not sure if I can forgive him myself. But the fact is that he won’t be around forever, and when he isn’t, you’re the one who’ll have to reckon with the way that you acted towards him.”

He paused. “Rainbow tells me you’re going to Beacon next year.”

Penny nodded. “That’s right. I want to be somewhere I can decide who I want to be for myself, not have it decided for me by Father or General Ironwood or anyone else.”

“Does Japeth know?” Pietro asked.

“No,” Penny answered, as though that should have been obvious. “If he knew, he wouldn’t let me go.”

“I don’t think that he can stop you, not all by himself,” Pietro replied. “And anyway, he might be more likely to try and stop you if you don’t tell him until it’s done or happening. Maybe it’ll be too late by then, maybe there’ll be nothing he can do, but … even after Mom passed, even though Japeth couldn’t forgive our father, he still came around. Not as often as Dad might have liked, sure, and he certainly didn’t drop everything to help take care of the old man, but he was there, sometimes. There with a cutting remark as often as not, but he was there. And I hope that gave him some comfort, after the end. I hope it still does. You might want that too, some day.”

“I … I see,” Penny murmured. “Thank you, Dad.”

Pietro smiled. “Any time, sweetheart.”

Penny smiled back at him. “I love you.”

“I love you too. Now call me again sometime, okay?”

“Okay,” Penny said. “Really soon, I promise, but right now, I need to ask Twilight for a favour.”

“Well, all right, then,” Pietro said. “I’ll let you get to it. So long, now.”

“Goodbye,” Penny said before she hung up the call.

She stared down at the scroll in her hands for a moment, the screen now turned black, the call terminated.

She knew what she had to do next, and not just because her Dad had pushed her to do it, but because … because it felt … because Dad was right: it was something that she ought to do.

And yet, at the same time, she was afraid to do it.

What if Father wouldn’t accept it, what if he yelled, what if he wouldn’t let her go? What if he locked her up to stop her going anywhere, like the Girl in the Tower in that book of fairytales that Blake had given her?

What if she upset him so much that it made his condition worse?

He wasn’t likely to be much less upset if he found out from someone other than her.

No. No, Dad was right, she had to tell him, and she had to tell him that there was nothing he could do to stop her. She had to tell him that they could call, or see each other sometimes, for however long … however long he had left, but she wasn’t going to … she wasn’t going to put off living her own life for his sake.

He couldn’t ask that of her. Not even, or especially, because he already had.

She had to tell him. She had to tell him the truth, and she had to tell him that there was nothing he could do about it.

And she had to hope that he would understand.

She called Twilight.

Twilight answered very quickly, her face filling the screen on Penny’s scroll. “Penny!” she cried. “Is everything okay, do you need me to come back?”

“No, I’m fine,” Penny said quickly. “I mean, I’m not … I don’t need you to come back right away,” Penny assured her. “But I do need to ask you a favour?”

“Of course, Penny,” Twilight replied. “What is it?”

“Tomorrow morning, can you come with me to speak to my father?” Penny asked. “There’s something I need to tell him.”

Comments

[Boltstrike58]

Poor Penny.

[Mastermind4892]

Self-determination is the greatest and perhaps most valuable quality of the sentient mind. It is what allows us Choice.