Getting Through
Doctor Spark woke me up again the morning after my nightmare, looking as tired as I felt. The previous two times she saw me, she appeared smiling and upbeat and ready to go. Today, however, she looked exhausted, likely because I kept her up half the night yesterday.
"I'm sorry I made you tired," I suddenly said, feeling bad about her lack of sleep.
"It's okay, Leo," she told me, putting a hoof in my mane. "That's what I'm here for." I stayed silent, and she asked, "Do you want to talk about last night?"
I shook my head at her. I didn't want to talk about last night. I didn't want to talk about yesterday at all. A lot was unloaded onto me all at once, and I didn't want to deal with all of it yet. So instead I asked, "What's for breakfast?" trying to change the subject.
"We’ll get to that in a little while,". She paused, then added, "How would you feel about living with Thundertail and Herbal Essence?" I shrugged my shoulders at that, and she moved on. "Do you want to talk about your dream?"
I stayed silent, thinking about the dream I had. The position I was in was just as much her fault as it was that genie’s. If she wouldn’t have given me those DVD’s, I wouldn’t have been an abused colt just then.
I knew that was ridiculous and I was being irrational, but I was angry at what she did in the dream. What I hated even more the feeling she gave me, a feeling of powerlessness. Powerless against her, powerless against myself, and powerless against everything around me. Even if I tried not to, I was going to end up screwing myself over, because everything was just going to keep getting worse. After the first few hours of the first day, I found myself hating my life more and more. Why would that trend break today?.
In the middle of these thoughts, I realized something. "How come Luna hasn't visited me?" I asked Doctor Spark.
"What?"
"I had four bad dreams in the last four days, and she hasn't visited me," I explained to her, suddenly feeling bitter. I didn't know why, but the thought that she hadn't visited my dreams made me upset.
"Well," she explained, "Luna's retired. She doesn't visit ponies dreams that often anymore."
That wasn’t a surprise, seeing as I watched the TV show. I knew she was retired. Besides, even if she wasn’t retired, there were millions of ponies in Equestria. The chances of her picking me out of any one of them were incredibly small.
“You can tell me about your dream,” Doctor Spark offered.
"I'm being less resistive, remember?" I told myself silently. Not that I had to. I could feel myself wanting to tell her.
"You can tell me, Leo," she tried to encourage, rubbing my shoulder. "Nopony will be mad at you."
"I was hurt in my dream, and I don't want to be hurt," I found myself telling her.
She tried to console me. "Nopony will hurt you again, Leo."
I sniffed. "I don't want to have been hurt," I clarified. "I don't want to deal with all of this." She looked visibly upset when I said that, with the tiniest bit of anger that I thought was directed at my colt body's mother. "But it's my fault," I added.
"Leo, it's not-"
"Yes it is," I interrupted, "and you won't convince me it's not."
She didn't know what to tell me, and there was nothing she could tell me. I might not have been the cause of my circumstances, but I put myself in a position for this to happen. It was my fault, and she wasn't going to change my mind.
She seemed to realize this, and tried to make me feel better in a different way. "I know it's hard now, but it's going to get better. I know you think everything will keep getting worse, but it'll get better, and you'll start to feel better."
"How do you know?"
"Well, for starters, for the most part you've been scratching your cheek a lot less than when I first met you, and you didn't even take any medicine." I reached up to scratch, and she stopped me. “You don’t need to scratch, Leo.”
"It's still there," I told her. "I'm just better at ignoring it now."
"That, or maybe you're feeling less itchy."
I humphed at that and lay back down, still looking at her. “I’m not getting better,” I said, feeling bitter.
“Why do you think you’re not?”
“Because,” I started, trying to keep control over my emotions. “Because I hate the way I feel, and I hate that every second I feel worse, and all I can do is cry about it.” She opened her mouth, and I said, “Don’t tell me it’s okay to cry. That’s not going to make me feel better.”
I watched her as she thought about her next move. I knew I was making her job difficult, but I figured it was better than making her job impossible by saying nothing. Besides, I was tired from last night. At least I was being honest with her.
“I know you don’t want to hear it,” she finally said, “but it’s okay to cry. Everypony cries, even grown-ups. But crying isn't the only thing you can do. Talking to somepony you trust can help you feel better. You just can’t let yourself get so worked up that you end up hurting yourself.”
“Talking won’t make me feel better. It won’t change anything,” I told her. “Besides, I basically already told you everything about me.”
“Can you tell me why you think it’s your fault you were hurt?”
“Because it is.”
She sighed, seeming like she was getting frustrated with me and was too tired to deal with my resistance right then. She seemed like she was off from the way she usually was, and couldn't quite find the right words to tell me, likely because of me. “I’ll be back in a few minutes. Let me go get you something to eat.”
"I'm sorry I'm annoying you," I told her.
Some of her frustration seemed to melt away at my comment. "You're not annoying me," she told me, sounding genuine. "I'll be right back, okay?"
I watched as she left, thinking about what she told me. Now that she said it, I did notice that I was scratching my face much less than before. I was still itchy, but it didn’t feel nearly as bad as before. I knew that should have made me happy or relieved, but it actually made me afraid. I didn’t want to turn into this colt, I wanted to turn into someone new. I actually found myself wishing a tiny bit that my itching would get a little worse. As awful as it was, at least it would confirm that I was still me, even if I was in this colt body. I knew that was a ridiculous thing to wish for. Less itching meant I was getting better. But still, I didn't want to simply change over from one bad life to another.
I closed my eyes, trying to stop myself from wishing Herbal Essence was there to comfort me. It wasn’t like I spent that much time with her, and I’d only known her for going on three days. But still, I wanted her to be there, and that thought made me more afraid.
By the time Ivory Spark came back, bringing Herbal Essence and Thundertail with her, Leo had already fallen back to sleep. She considered waking him back up so he could eat, but opted not to, instead taking the opportunity to speak with the couple.
“I want to talk to you about Leo,” she started off, setting the tray of food she carried aside. “I know we discussed fostering Leo in your home, and that’s still the plan, I just want to give you the details of what’s going on and what’s going to happen.”
She sighed, and continued, “The first is that Leo’s case had been referred to police, and they have-” All of a sudden, she stopped, looking at Thundertail and remembering something. “Scratch that. The first thing,” she restarted, “is that what’s being told to you is not to be discussed with other ponies.” She stared directly at Thundertail when saying this, looking at him for his response. “Do you understand?” she asked him.
“Um, yeah,” he said as he looked at the ground, embarrassed.
“Okay. Anyway, this case was referred to police, and although it’s been less than twelve hours since they got this case, they said they’ll likely be making an arrest today. So you shouldn’t be surprised if they interview you both.”
“So, has Leo…?” Herbal Essence got out, trailing off with the question she was going to ask.
“Yes,” Doctor Spark said quietly. “He, um, he told me last night.”
“Oh, no,” the mare said, covering her mouth with her hoof. She began to get teary-eyed, as though Leo were her own foal. “Oh, that's awful. Is it okay if I go over to touch him?” she sniffed.
“That’s fine,” the doctor told her, watching as Herbal Essence moved over to the colt and began to stroke his mane. “Although we need to discuss how I expect you to interact with him. You’re going to need to be able to adjust to his needs.”
“What kind of adjustments are we making?” Thundertail asked.
“For starters, I don’t want you yelling or raising your voice around him. He has a severe lack self confidence, and believes it was his fault he was hurt. Actually, yesterday, he said it was his fault you were yelling at Lucky Day.”
Thundertail blushed at that, and felt slightly ashamed. “I’m sorry,” he apologized.
“His confidence is extremely low, and you can’t do things that might be perceived as his fault by him. He’s going to need constant reassurance to raise his confidence, and gentleness when he makes mistakes.
“With that, you can’t push him too much to do something he doesn’t want to do. I told you before he has self-harming tendencies, which seem to stem from a want to ground himself when he gets angry or worked up. If he starts to hurt himself, call me or take him to the hospital in East Baltimare.”
“When is this all happening?” the stallion asked. "When is he moving in with us?"
“Likely within the next few days. It’s Wednesday, and I’d ideally like to have him in school by next Monday. But that’s only if I think he’s ready to leave. If he’s not, he’ll be transferred from here to EBR.”
“EBR?”
“East Baltimare Regional,” she told them. “But that would only be if something came up. If all goes well, we could have him move into your home by tomorrow.”
I could feel a hoof stroking my mane, and immediately recognized it as Herbal Essence’s. There was something about her touch that was soothing to me, that made me feel like all of my problems would vanish. Of course, I knew that wouldn’t happen, seeing as I was still me.
“I’m sorry, Leo,” she whispered as I opened my eyes, noting Thundertail behind her, “I didn’t mean to wake you up.”
I stared at her, and saw that her eyes were wet. She’d been crying recently, and I quickly realized it was because of me. I was fairly certain that Doctor Spark told her what I said about things being my fault. “I’m sorry I made you cry,” I whispered back to her.
“It’s not your fault, Leo,” she said, wiping away her tears and wrapping her arms around me, putting my head on her shoulder. “I’m upset because you were hurt, and that’s not your fault.”
“Yes it is.”
“That’s not your fault,” she asserted to me. “Okay?”
She could have been a therapist. She barely knew me, and yet she had a way of getting through to me that even Doctor Spark didn’t have. A way that even my own mother, my human mother, didn’t have. The way she spoke to me was so convincing that I felt myself almost believe her.
“Okay?” she asked me again, looking me in the eyes now.
“Okay,” I whispered back.
She put my head back on her shoulder, asking, “How would you feel about moving in with me and Thundertail? Would that be okay?”
I didn’t like where this was going. I wanted to say yes, and I hated the fact that I wanted to say yes, hating the fact that I liked her comfort. I did not want to be this abused colt. I’d rather deal with this itching than have this colt’s life. I’d rather not change at all than change and have this colt’s life. I wanted to tell her no, if only it meant that I was still me and that this colt’s abuse wouldn’t have happened to me. I felt awful for wanting to go back to the way I was to avoid having to deal with this, but I truly didn't want to deal with all of this.
“Yes,” I whispered back to her.
Ivory Spark considered herself lucky to work for Baltimare’s branch of Foal Protection Services, even if it was only on a case by case basis.
Although most of her time was spent in the hospital with regular colts and fillies, whenever she got a case every few weeks she thanked Celestia that the city of Baltimare gave her the freedom to do her job. In other cities she might have been largely useless. There, her entire job might be to do a half an hour interview with a foal, then recommend them to somepony else. In Baltimare, however, she saw each of her cases through to completion, whenever she felt that might be, and was given a large amount of authority over the decisions made in each case she handled, including deciding where a foal went if she determined that their present home wasn’t suitable. She heard in other cities somepony else would make that determination, sometimes taking weeks to do so, often without meeting either the parents or the colt or filly. She’d heard horror stories about foals who had to spend large amounts of time in foster care as a result because of this, and had her own fillyhood experiences in such things, and was glad that Baltimare made it easy to avoid that issue by giving her control in that decision.
Despite her hesitance with Thundertail, she felt confident that Leo living with Herbal Essence would be a perfect fit. She was a bit on the younger side, and didn’t have children, but she didn’t expect that to be an issue. She seemed kind and caring and generally concerned for the colt’s wellbeing, and was certain that she could keep Thundertail in line after a private conversation with her. Leo already seemed to enjoy her presence, and had possibly already made the mare his new mother figure. Ivory Spark was beginning to think that this might be the best possible situation for the colt to be in. All that was largely left now was a background check on the two.
She already requested their criminal and personal history from the City of Baltimare two days ago on the couple, and it was sent to where she normally worked in East Baltimare, and then from there sent to North Star for her to view that day. She started by reading Herbal Essence’s report first, and found exactly what she expected: nothing. Other than some fine that she paid for something to do with the herbal scents shop she owned, there was nothing of note on her report. She looked over Thundertail’s report and saw largely the same thing, except for one thing.
“PI/DC report listed on back of page,” she read aloud, not knowing what it meant. She quickly turned the page over and read through it, and learned exactly what it meant.
She closed her eyes and gave a frustrated sigh. “Celestia, why do you do this to me?” she whispered, tired and annoyed.
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Police investigation of disorderly conduct? We suspected our little thunderhead might have a more sensitive trigger. He'll definitely need training.
It's not bad to want your own life, but he needs to realize that this is literally the chance to start anew, well, mostly. Everyone has challenges and this set simply needs different gloves. His older mental state may be great for this if he'd just focus and stop worrying.... But nobody is perfect from the start. It's a process after all...
Keep going! ;)
Well, if Luna's retired then I withdraw my objections
She's got PLENTY of time for everything.
The only quibble would be "Why this case?"
& that is explained because she found Leo
10121168
Pure chance probably
/////
Luna retired so its after the show. Im curious what awaits him ones hes a adult. I think a Changelings would make a good friend or/and mate.
Maybe the one helping creatures all over the universe is Discord? As long Choas is made in the process constructiv or destructiv its his game. Neutral/ good chaotic in DnD turn i heard.
10121145
My bet is on Public Intoxication/Disorderly Conduct
Well this answers a lot of questions about Luna not watching dreams, and will make sure that Leo's truth won't be relieved directly to the crown just yet. I wonder if Leo will still have to be put to medication for his mental state, which would still be a step back for him still in his goals in life.
10121386
Ah yes, that does make more sense.
10121386
That is an excellent bet
I am really worried about Luna discovering his Human side.
Besides that, I have been loving this story.
I get the feeling that the PI might mean Public Indecency... not sure about the DC though.
10151677
Disorderly conduct?
Okay, there it is.
Ummm....
That constant reassurance is going to disappear once he moves out. It's the brick wall most "kids" hit when it gets real and they rarely recover. Someday it will be all his fault; otherwise he is not yet an adult.
(Which is why it is his fault as the human was an adult.)
Which is how confidence is built. He makes a decision and sticks with it. Peer and parental pressure can be quite harmful when the subject's wants are always being suppressed. Let him makes mistakes, let him get injured; no mistakes no growth.
Noooo! I want to know what PI/DC mean?!
10780677
Public intoxication or Disorderly conduct
10776681
he is 5
10776681
he is 5