Mothers
When Scarlet came back to consciousness, it was with the realization that her entire body was in pain. Barely stifling a groan, the battered unicorn cracked an eye open. She was in a cave, by the look of things, the light of the early morning sun streaming in through the cave mouth. Through the threshold, she could make out a dense collection of trees that shortly swallowed up everything not far from the entrance.
“Ah, good, you’re awake,” Lens’ voice came from her right, drawing her attention deeper into the cave. She spotted Sclera lying down against the far wall, Protea’s still-slumbering form nestled in her hooves. The changeling mother was covered in a few places by strips of blue fabric. Lens stood over them, a few scraps of said fabric suspended in the air behind him in his magic.
Scarlet slowly pushed herself up into a sitting position. She realized with a start that her own injuries had been treated in much the same way as Sclera’s, with long strips of blue cloth. As she examined herself, she realized that her cloak was little more than a thick metal yoke with tattered scraps of fabric hanging off of it to tickle her shoulders.
“I’m sorry I didn’t ask,” Lens said, anticipating her question. He walked over to her and checked the makeshift bandages. Satisfied that they would hold, he smiled and nodded at her. “But I had to make sure you were going to be alright. You took quite a beating, and that arrow missed your spine by an inch. You’re lucky you can still walk.”
Scarlet rubbed a hoof over her face and took a deep breath. She clutched at the yoke of her cloak, briefly closing her eyes and forcing down her guilt at letting it get damaged like this. After a moment, she opened her eyes. “...What happened?”
Lens took a step back to give her some space, then sat down on his haunches. “Well, you started a big fire, and then passed out. Lucky for us, the flames caused the soldiers chasing us to redivert their attention into putting it out, giving me the chance I needed to pick you up and carry you the rest of the way,” he explained simply.
Scarlet winced at the reminder of the fire, a bead of guilt forming inside her heart. At the time, she knew there had been no other way to draw the guards off of them, but that didn’t change the fact that what she had done was very likely to have harmed many innocent ponies. Now that she wasn’t being consumed in adrenaline and could think clearly, she almost felt sick the longer she thought about it.
“I’m sorry,” she finally choked out, looking away to hide her face behind her mane. “I thought I had no choice.”
Lens sighed quietly. “Yeah… I can’t say I agree with your decision from a moral standpoint, but… well, it let me save your life, and it’s gonna let us keep going.”
Scarlet fell silent for several seconds. She shifted uncomfortably on her haunches before tearing her gaze away from Lens to stare at Protea. The child she had done all of this for... “How is she?” she asked quietly, inching forward and raising a hoof.
Sclera instinctively cradled the sleeping child closer to her chest to shield her. “She’s fine,” was her reply, short and clipped.
Scarlet’s ears drooped. She looked into Sclera’s eyes, seeing little aside from mistrust and fear in those glowing blue orbs. Scarlet opened her mouth to speak, but the words became lodged in her throat. “I… Sclera, I…”
A tense silence fell over the chamber for several long seconds. Then, Lens suddenly cleared his throat and stood up. “I’m going to go set up some proximity wards. We don’t want to be snuck up on,” he announced, although the look in his eyes as he stared down at Scarlet made it painfully clear there was another reason for his abrupt departure.
“Clever stallion,” Scarlet quietly raged in her mind, wanting to kick him just then but not having the strength or will to do so.
Sclera offered up no complaints, either. A moment later, Lens turned and left the cave, soon vanishing into the trees and fading from sight. This left Scarlet and Sclera entirely on their own, both of them looking at anything but the other mare in the room.
Scarlet closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “...I’m sorry,” she finally began.
“I know.”
Scarlet turned to Sclera. The changeling had an oddly understanding look on her face. She looked down, her ears drooping. “I… I can see it in the air. I can taste it. You’re extremely guilty over what happened on the wall...”
Trying not to think about the fact that her emotions had a taste to them, Scarlet adjusted herself and looked away again. “...Did Lens tell you anything about my past? About… w-why I lashed out at you as I did?” she asked, her voice hitching.
Sclera shook her head. “He did not. He merely told me it was not for him to discuss,” she said.
“Of course he did,” Scarlet breathed out. She took another deep breath to steady herself before launching into the story. “The reason I attacked you is, paradoxically, the same reason that I agreed to let you out of your cell and take you with me.”
Sclera tilted her head, a quizzical chitter coming from the bottom of her voice.
The sound made Scarlet’s skin crawl. For a moment, the back of her skull burned, but she was quick to force the sensation down and continue. “You see… I know only all too well what it is like to lose a child. My own daughter, Crystal Clear… she was murdered a few months ago. By one of the monsters that Protea called a ‘Feral.’ It… it bit into her throat, tore it out… and I was powerless to stop it.”
Sclera’s eyes slowly widened in shock. “Oh my goodness…”
Scarlet sniffled, her vision starting to blur, and her chest constricting in pain. She wiped a hoof over her face and forced herself to continue. “So w-when I saw you biting into that guard’s throat like that, it… it… it was l-like I was right b-back there, in the moment, watching my little girl dying all over again. And I… I couldn’t…”
Scarlet could say no more. She screwed her eyes shut and focused on just breathing, desperate to calm herself down and reign in her rampant emotions.
Sclera slowly lowered her eyes, a distant look coming onto her face. “...I see,” she whispered quietly, her protective hold on Protea relaxing somewhat. “When you had me pinned there, I could see the grief around you. It was such an intense shade, and it overwhelmed everything else. I didn’t know what it meant… and there were tears in your eyes. I had never seen such a look of anguish before.”
“It is the worst pain I have ever felt,” Scarlet acknowledged shakily after a few seconds, sniffling again. “Not even the injuries and losses I suffered in the war come close… She was everything to me. My one chance to bring something good into the world, and I let her die… I can imagine no agony greater than that…”
Scarlet lifted her gaze to Sclera again, a ghost of a smile tugging at the corner of her lips. “And then, in you, I saw the same thing. I saw a broken, grieving mother, one suffering from the impossible agony of losing their child... and I saw a chance to take away her pain…” her eyes lowered again, her smile fading. “...A pain that I shall never be rid of, I fear.”
Sclera opened her mouth several times, fishing for words. In the end, she settled for silently bowing her head and offering in a whisper: “Thank you, then, for saving my baby… and for the loss of yours, you have my sorrow.”
To her surprise, Scarlet did not feel the knee-jerk desire to dismiss the sympathies. After so many months of having that be her typical response, it came as a confusing shock. But after a moment of thought, it dawned on her why. Every other time, save for Lens and Wind, the condolences offered by those around her had been hollow, practiced affairs, devoid of actual care or sympathy for her, her plight, or her dead daughter.
This time, however, the sympathies were genuine, coming from one who was, in many ways, not unlike her.
Scarlet mirrored the bowing motion with her head. “Thank you, Sclera… and you’re welcome. Watching after your child has been my honor.”
Sclera’s sympathetic expression slowly turned into a grateful smile. “I’m glad to hear it… and I want to hear everything, if you are willing to share,” she said, briefly glancing down at the filly cradled in her legs.
Scarlet was quiet for a moment before offering a small nod of her head. “Of course… There is much of her story I do not know, so you will need to question her about the events before I met her. But the rest…”
She gave off a humorless chuckle, shaking her head. “Ha. It feels like it’s been so long since I met her… it’s hard for me to believe I first stumbled on that filly in my home only a few months ago.”
“You mentioned that you found her in your wine cellar,” Sclera recalled, her muzzle twisting in thought. “What was she doing down there, again?”
“Getting out of the rain, mostly,” Scarlet replied without missing a beat. She was overcome by a wave of nostalgia as she thought back on that night. “She somehow broke in and hid down there for a while. Eventually, a blast of thunder startled her, and she knocked over one of my more expensive wine racks… I found her cowering behind some empty barrels, her fur stained red with wine and shards of glass from broken bottles sticking out of her forelegs.”
“How was she, then?” Sclera asked quietly, nestling down and perking up her ears to listen.
Scarlet’s eyes slowly began to go distant as she lost herself in the memory. “She was skinny… even more than right now. I could practically see her ribs. She was weak, cold, covered in filth, and her mane was long and matted down. She looked like she had been through hell, and I learned soon enough that what she had been through wasn’t much better.”
“Of course. She was disguised as a pony when you met, wasn’t she?” Sclera asked, glancing down at Protea with a small, proud smile. “Good girl… I taught her that ever since she learned to listen to me…”
Scarlet nodded, her smile fading. “Yes… she introduced herself as Primrose, back then. A fake name now, I realize-”
“No.”
Scarlet clamped her jaw shut, taken off guard by the sudden interruption. She looked to Sclera and saw the changeling looking back at her with an odd expression. She shook her head. “Primrose is her name just as surely as Protea is.”
Scarlet blinked, her head tilting to one side. “What? I… I don’t follow.”
Sclera’s smile slowly returned, and she held Protea closer. “It’s something my own mother started. When I was born, she gave me two names. A changeling name, and a pony name. Considering how much time we spent disguised as ponies, we needed to be able to live among them for long stretches with no issues. For example, my changeling name is Iris, but my pony name is Sclera. I haven’t corrected you up to now because both are true.”
Scarlet nodded along slowly. “I see… and so you applied the same method to your children…” she muttered, looking down at Protea—or Primrose—with a small smile. After a few seconds, her smile faded, and she looked up to Sclera again, this time with curiosity. “But hold on… for the sake of your own survival, would it not have been easier to simply adopt a pony name entirely?”
Sclera’s expression soured somewhat. “Perhaps it might have… that’s certainly the angle my mate took. But I did not want to sacrifice what little of our culture we had left. Hanging on to our old naming conventions is one of my only ways of preserving the legacy of my people.”
“An admirable sentiment… and as a mare with a passion for history, I commend you for that decision,” Scarlet said, a small bead of appreciation forming in the back of her mind.
Sclera hummed at that. The two fell silent for a few moments before Sclera cleared her throat. “So, you were telling me about how you met my daughter?” she asked.
Scarlet jumped slightly at the reminder. “Oh! Of course, my apologies. Yes, as I said, I discovered her in my cellar…”
Scarlet talked for what felt like hours, recounting everything that she and Primrose had gone through. From that initial confrontation in the alleyway with Silent Edge to their long journey across New Equestria to reach Shimmervale. She went in-depth, reciting everything that she could recall to the best of her ability. All the while, Sclera listened with wide eyes and rapt attention, only rarely interrupting to ask for clarification on something.
As the story went on, Scarlet gradually became more and more uneasy. Finally, the words died in her throat as she was recounting the events after fleeing Shimmervale. Sclera eyes her for several moments, her expression morphing with confusion and concern. “Is… is something wrong? You’re anxious,” she said after a moment.
Scarlet looked away guiltily, the yoke of her collar feeling constricting around her throat. “I… Forgive me, but, I feel it may be better if I skipped this part,” she said softly, her ears lowering. “I don’t know if you’d want to-”
“Scarlet,” Sclera cut her off, her expression hardening. “I want to know everything. Please… I have spent the last five years believing my last child was dead. Whatever happened can never hope to undo the joy of holding her again. So please, tell me.”
Scarlet hesitated, then nodded. “Right… well, uh… a-a few days after we left Shimmervale, Silent… finally caught up to us,” she said, the words hitching repeatedly in her throat as she went. “And… and I didn’t see him in time. In one moment, he slipped in behind us and… and p-plunged his blades into Prim’s chest and stomach.”
Sclera’s eyes widened, the color draining from her face. “He… he got her?”
Scarlet nodded. “He did… to my shame, he was able to slip past my watch and do the deed. I fought him off after that, believing she was dead. But, thank the Five, she was alive. It was close, though. I am honestly stunned she was able to live with those injuries at all, much less long enough to receive medical attention…”
Sclera looked down at Protea for a few moments before her expression darkened. Her eyes narrowed, and her fangs became visible in a hateful scowl. “Silent Edge… if I ever get my hooves on that wretch, I will strangle the life out of him for what he has done to my family!”
Scarlet lifted a hoof in a placating gesture. “I doubt that will be necessary, Sclera. Remember, I turned his men on him back in Newcanter. But on the off chance, he does resume his hunt for you, focus on staying alive. Seeking vengeance will yield no satisfaction, that much I can attest to firsthoof…”
Scarlet’s voice trailed off, her mind briefly wandering back to the moments after Crystal’s death. In her grief and rage, the world had gone red. She didn’t remember much of what happened, but she did remember a flurry of magic, a spray of gore, and the scattered, brutalized limbs of the feral strewn around her as she cradled Crystal’s corpse…
Sclera stared at her for a long moment, no doubt seeing the hollow feeling Scarlet was feeling just then. With a slow nod, she pulled Protea up to her chest and planted a small kiss atop her head. “Alright…” she whispered.
“Good… now,” Scarlet said, focusing back on the conversation. “As long as we are on the subject of that incident, there is something I am curious about…”
Sclera tilted her head. “What?”
Scarlet gestured her hoof at Protea. “When Silent stabbed her, she was on death’s door for an entire day, and unconscious for several more, but never once did her disguise fade. She was a pony the entire time. I was under the impression that a changeling’s disguise was based on magic, and in her state, I can only imagine most enchantments or spells would fail. Do you know why her disguise remained in place?”
Sclera lifted a hoof to tap at her chin. “Hmmmm… Well, I think it stems from how free changelings have adapted their magic to suit our new way of life. In my family, at least, the function of the spell was modified by my grandfather. It used to be an active enchantment, but now it’s more of a passive effect. We set it, and then we can just leave it alone. As long as there is magic in our bodies to sustain it, the enchantment will persist even without our attention. Given she chose a pony form, which is structurally quite similar to her normal form, the drain on her magic would have been minuscule at most.”
The math and technicalities clicked together in Scarlet’s mind in a heartbeat. “I think I understand,” she said, nodding along. “But then, if she had died, the disguise would have failed, yes?”
“After a time,” Sclera acknowledged. “I am not sure about how it all works, but my mother told me that magic doesn’t leave the body immediately upon death. It leaves slowly as a part of decomposition…”
“Ah, yes, and since the shapeshifting spell is passive, it would have taken some time before the effects came to an end,” Scarlet finished with a slow nod. “Well, assuming that same method is universal across free changelings, that would certainly explain the startling lack of cases where deceased ponies were discovered to have been changelings all along… they were dead and buried before their true forms could be revealed.”
Sclera nodded at that, humming quietly to herself. A few moments later, she leaned forward again. “How did you save her, then? From her injuries, I mean.” She asked.
“It was difficult; of that, I can assure you… we had to take her to some ponies she had lived with in the past. The Apple family of Hoofrest Shire…”
Eventually, Scarlet’s recap of events came to an end. The two fell into a companionable silence after that, Scarlet taking the opportunity to start going over their situation in her head. As safe as this spot was, the moment they were ready to travel, they would have to keep going. Lover’s Shade was still a very enticing destination, in spite of the travel time needed to get there. It would be risky, and with Sclera as battered as she was, the going would be slow and difficult. But with any luck-
There was a stirring, and Scarlet’s heart leaped into her throat when she heard Protea’s voice reach her ears. Gasping sharply, Scarlet looked up to see the filly slowly opening up her eyes to look out at the rest of the cave. “...Wha… Scarlet?” she croaked quietly once her eyes settled on her. “Scarlet, what… where are we…?”
Scarlet looked down, a feeling of discomfort rolling up and down her spine on hearing the child’s voice in her ears again. “I… I’m not the one you should be looking at,” she whispered a moment later before nodding at Sclera. “Look.”
Protea stiffened, an anxious look on her face. Slowly, agonizingly slowly, she turned. She moved timidly as if she wasn’t sure she wanted to see the owner of the hooves cradling her tiny body. At last, her eyes found those of her mother. Her jaw hung open, her eyes flying wide in shock. “Wha…?”
Sclera smiled tenderly at her. “Good morning, Primrose…” she whispered while giving her child a nuzzle.
Protea mouthed uselessly like a fish for several seconds. She slowly reached a hoof up to touch her mother’s cheek. “...Mom?” she whispered, her quivering voice almost deafening in the relative silence of the cave. “Is it really you? Is it…?”
Sclera nodded slowly, reaching up to hold Protea’s hoof in her own. “Of course… I told you I would come and find you, didn’t I?” she replied softly.
Protea’s face twisted rapidly, from shock, to grief, to joy, and back to sorrow. Barely stifling a sob, she lunged forward to hug her mother, burying her face in the larger changeling’s chest. Sclera returned the hug, holding Protea as tight as she could and sheltering her with her body. From the bundle of limbs, the filly’s hysterical weeping was clearly audible. “M-mama… you n-never came… I th-thought you were dead…”
Sclera’s ears drooped in guilt, but instinct proved quick to take over. She craned her neck down, gently shushed her daughter and running a hoof down the back of her head. “I know, sweetie, I know… I’m sorry I took so long… I’m so sorry… But I’m here, now. I’m here. I got you. It’s okay. It’s all going to be okay.”
Protea shivered uncontrollably in her mother’s embrace, helplessly gasping out the word ‘mama’ over and over again. All the while, Sclera held her child close to her heart, rocking her back and forth and whispering assurances that, finally, everything was going to be okay.
Scarlet watched the scene unfolding for what felt like hours. It was heartwarming to see, and she couldn’t help but smile. However, the joy she felt at bearing witness to such a long-overdue reunion began to dwindle and fade, leaving nothing but a hollow sense of regret and loneliness to fill her heart.
She tore her eyes away from the tender scene, her ears drooping. Her heart twisted uncomfortably in her chest, and she reached a hoof up to hover tentatively over it. Even just sitting here as witness, she almost felt as if she were intruding on an event she had no place at. Shame and guilt clawed away at her heart with every passing moment, making her feel more and more inadequate.
Mere feet away, a mother was, at long last, being reunited with her daughter after years of being apart. Their joy was a wonderful thing to behold… and it was something Scarlet would never get to experience for herself. No matter how much she wished for it, her own daughter would not magically come wandering back into her life… And after what she had done to the poor foal in Newcanter, whatever relationship they had been developing was gone.
Protea had her true mother back, leaving Scarlet in a depressingly obsolete position. She could no longer be the mother figure she had imagined herself being, so where did that leave her?
“Right where I began,” she thought to herself, closing her eyes and settling back down for some rest. “As her protector… nothing more.”
The joyful weeping of the mother and daughter next to her filled her ears, the last thing she heard before her still-lingering exhaustion lulled her back into slumber.
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As much as I want things to go well for our little outlaw band, I've got a sinking feeling that things are about to go very wrong in the near future. So, I'm just going to enjoy this tender bonding moment between mothers, and the beautiful reunion between Protea and Sclera.
This is nice.
Unfortunately Skijarama has a habit of twisting the knife in unique and unexpected ways that avoid cliche... so while I don't think Sclera is going to die, I'm worried about what's going to happen next.
Finally, got answers about Prim's disguise not failing. That's been bothering me ever since Silent revealed she was a Changeling. Interesting that Primrose and Protea are both equally valid names.
a vary happy time and at the same time a sad one.
You are skilled in the way of the knife, Skijarama...
This is such a touching reunion. I just hope they finally get to find out whats in the lamp from Prim's mother.
10065953
Please. tell me more.
Ah, what more is there to say?
Ouch... Scarlet is on a strait road to snapping. I imagine her mental break will be an amazing feat of magic right before it kill her. She’s going to need some time to heal or I don’t see any good in the future.
And perhaps because it's coming from a changeling.