Thunder and Hail

by Trixie_L

3

I had never forgiven him for not being there for me. I will never forgive him for not being there for mom. When I left Canterlot my father fell apart. He sold our house and moved to Ponyville. I got a letter many years ago from him inviting me to a wedding; his wedding. With some young tramp of a mare that wasn't even a unicorn. The letter arrived a week after the wedding from, and thanks to, the worst mail-pony I've seen in all my travels in Equestria (some gray pegasus). It was just as well, I wouldn't have gone anyways. I hadn't spoken to him since I left, and I can't say we parted ways on good terms. I had no idea if he would give me what I wanted, but if it meant getting closer to fulfilling my mother's hopes for me then it had to be done. I thought about what I might say to him on the train ride to Ponyville.

The small town of Ponyville was lush and green, with plants freshly blooming in the onset of spring. Filled with animals, quaint little shops, and ponies who were generally too quaint for my preference it's a far cry from Canterlot. Why father settled here I'll never know—perhaps the tramp lured him here, or ensnared him as he was passing through, or maybe he was running from what he was used to back home. It didn't matter, I intended to leave the small hovel-town without so much as a performance—these ponies would never appreciate a show-mare such as Trixie. When I arrived at the address listed, deep along Meadowlark Lane on the edge of the forest, it was already night and I knew he would be there. I knocked.

A line of light stretched along the edge of the doorway as the young mare behind it cracked it open ever-so-slightly.

“Can I help you, ma'am?”

I breathed a welcome sigh of relief at the sight of the young maid mare asking the question. I'd traveled so far expecting the tramp to answer the door. “I-”

“Oh, of course! Madam Lulamoon, I'm so sorry I didn't recognize you sooner!” The door swung open as the maid took a few paces back, gesturing me inside. “Come in!”

“I'm here to see my father. Is he in?” My eyes darted around the room behind the door. The décor was simple, but elegant—and undoubtedly expensive. Large black marble tiles contrasted the soft egg-white hue of the walls. A crystal chandelier hung in the center of the entryway and orchids in elaborate terracotta pots could be seen scattered around the room.

“Of course, madam, please follow me to the study.” She must have recognized me from a photograph, but the walls were barren as we made our through a hallway to father's study.

The entrance to the study was guarded by a thick wooden door, recessed into the wall—the only one in the long hall to appear so thick, and certainly the only doorway set further into the wall. My father was a stallion who enjoyed his privacy. I would bet all of the bits to my name that he'll close the door as his first order of business, so that nopony else in the house can hear what I've been waiting to say to him. About his new wife, his lavish house in ridiculous little town, his—

“Here we are madam, you may wait here while I fetch your father.” The study was full of pictures. Framed pictures on the desk, on the walls, on the end-table. There were several of me from before I had left home, pictures of father and the tramp from just before the wedding—the same photos he'd sent in his letter—and there were photos from after the wedding. He looked happy, and it only angered me further. Then I saw it.

In the middle of a group of photographs on his desk were several of a young earth-pony with braided silver hair and a gray coat. I momentarily forgot my anger. In an instant it was replaced by sadness, and desperation to wake up from the nightmare. He hadn't just married the tramp, he had another daughter with her. An earth-pony. How could he? How could he do it to me? What about mother? The anger began to rise once more until it was boiling inside of me. How could that inconsiderate, foolish, selfish—

“Trixie! It's been so long since I've seen you!” My father rushed from the door behind me to embrace me. He didn't close the door. He always closes it...

“I—you—how could you do this?!” I could barely think straight.

“What did I do, sweetheart? Why are you so angry?” His apparent confusion incensed me even further. I was nearing the edge of what I could take without completely breaking down. In one swift motion I levitated the pictures of the young filly and smashed them against the wall, shattering the glass. I began to weep as they fell to the floor.

“How could you?” Even if he had an answer, I didn't want it.

“You've known about this for years, sweetie, I wrote to you with pictures shortly after she was born.” That was supposed to fix it. In my father's mind all he had to do was tell me that he wrote to me about it, that solved everything. Wrote to me in a letter I never received. Wrote to me after her birth. If there was a chance I could have ever forgiven him, it vanished in that instant.

“I didn't know about this, and it doesn't even matter—you aren't a stallion, you're a pig and you disgust me.” It stung to say, even if it was what I felt in my heart of hearts. I couldn't stop myself. “I'm only here for some of mom's things. You didn't sell them did you? Tell me that isn't how you paid for the house for your whore and her daughter.”

“Trixie...” He began to cry. I had never seen him cry, even when mom died. “When your mother died I felt so lost, and alone.” He struggled to speak between tears. “I didn't know what to do, and I had moments where I even resented her for leaving me behind alone to deal with the pain. And I still had to raise you!”

“You didn't raise me. You were never around!” Father wasn't the only one that was left alone when mom died.

“I had to work! Someone had to provide for you, you were too young to fend for yourself! But that is beside the point, Trix, listen...” Some of his composure had returned. “I was miserable for so long, and when you left it really broke me. So I came here to start a new life, and I'm happy now. I have a loving wife, and a daughter who will want for nothing so long as she lives.” He looked straight at me, tears still hanging in his eyes. “All I'm missing now is you. You don't have to be so distant. Don't you see? We could be a family again.”

I paused to consider my words. “My family died a long time ago. I don't want yours.” The words hit him hard. “Do you have mom's collection or not? The one she kept in the locked glass case.”

“No! I don't. I got rid of it a long time ago, and if you don't want to be part of this family—if you can't even be happy for me—then leave right now and I won't try to contact you again.” He didn't need to say anything else. I was as halfway to the door before he finished his sentence. That was it, the trip was wasted. Even worse: now I had to deal with the fact that I had an earth-pony related to me through unfortunate circumstances.

I rushed back to the exit, almost slipping on the black marble as I left the house. I paused just outside the door to consider my options. If I went back to Canterlot empty-hoofed I'd never come back to Ponyville to try and find the collection (assuming it hadn't found its way someplace else already). I couldn't let mom's collection slip away without trying to recover it. I'd stay and see what I could find, even if I'd have to spend my traveling bits on it and walk back to Canter—

“Uhm, Trixie?” A meek voice from behind me caught me off guard. I turned around to see the filly from the photos inside. A small earth-pony with a silver spoon cutie mark. “My name is Silver Spoon, and,” she paused and looked at me with her eyes beginning to tear up, “I'm your sister, but I guess you don't want that.” My heart sank.

“Listen, it isn't that way.” I didn't know what to say. “Maybe, someday in the future we'll see each other again and get to know one another.” The thought repulsed me.

“But, Trixie, I,” I didn't want her to finish. I couldn't let her finish.

“The great show-mare Trixie has to be off, back to Canterlot where I'm expected to put on a show first thing in the mor—“

“I know where your mother's thing is!”

“—ning.” I eyed the filly cautiously, trying to get a read on whether or not she was lying to me. “Okay, tell me more.”

Silver Spoon smiled and pulled a folded scrap of paper out of her bag. I'd been caught off guard so badly that I hadn't even noticed she had a bag. “I have a map, see?” She unfolded the scrap and held it up proudly. It was a simple map in black ink, with a single red cross marked on it and encircled. “I'll give it to you, but only if you let me go with you to get it!” Her enthusiasm was frightening.

“Trixie has an idea, instead, I'll give 10 bits for that scrap of paper and I'll write to you if I find anything interesting.” There was no way I'd ever take along this earth-pony.

“TEN bits? My allowance is TWO-HUNDRED bits a month!” She was indignant. I should have known that she'd be spoiled rotten.

“Fine, I can give you ONE hundred bits for that scrap of useless paper.” What was I doing? One-hundred bits wasn't trivial.

Spoon tilted her head to the side slightly and furrowed her brow. “You'll take me with you or you won't get the map.” This was new; why would this little filly want to go with me? Something was off.

“Silver Spoon, why do you want to go with me so badly?” Her widened eyes began to tear up; the look on her face broke my heart.

“It's just...” She fell silent for a moment. “I've seen pictures of you my whole life. You're my big sister, and I want to get to know you.” A tear fell from one eye. “Every year I'd look at your picture and wish you were here for the Sisterhooves Social, or any other day, even!”

I didn't want to accept her offer, but I needed the map—the collection, or even just the cube. This was my only way of getting it, and the filly had managed to nearly reduce me to tears. Even so, there was no way I'd ever call this earth-pony my sister. I'd just have to find some way to explain it to her. Some way to make her realize that I didn't want any part of knowing her mother, or seeing my father anymore. A way of explaining that I didn't want a sister; I didn't dream of being anypony's anything at the Sisterhooves Social. I'd finish this little errand and let her down as easy as I could. “So where are we headed? Let me see this map.”

“I think it's in the forest.”

“Let me see.” She was right. The map was a scrap of paper from some old book. The spot marked was barely inside of the Everfree Forest, in a cave, the last place in Equestria that I ever wanted to find myself. It was inside of a cave somewhere deep in the Everfree Forest where my mother encountered the ursa major. If that was my mother's fate, what would become of us? But ponies venture into the Everfree Forest all the time and come out alive—don't they? I'd heard ponies in Canterlot talking about exploring the caves for old dragon hoards, but they were probably better prepared than I could hope to be for this. I resolved to go ahead—a great sorceress never turns back, and it wasn't as though we couldn't simply run at the first sign of danger.